


Iron and Gold

by Isra



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Alternate Universe, High School, Kids, M/M, Mysterious Heritage, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-05
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-04-30 02:58:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 29,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5147777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isra/pseuds/Isra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Link must come to terms with his mysterious heritage and deal with its impact on his life and his friendship with Rhett. AU in which many things are similar to, but different from, actual events in their childhood and young adult lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve got this fic about half written in draft form and the rest of it plotted out (roughly 15 parts). I’m not sure how quickly I will write it; it depends on my personal motivation and whether it seems like people are digging it. This chapter is a bit of a prologue.

_September 1984_

“So your name’s Link?”

The little boy with the nut-brown hair looked up from where the outline of his unicorn was nearly filled with meticulously shaded purple crayon. He blinked away the intense concentration from his mind and pulled the tip of his tongue back from between his lips. The other first-grader who had asked the question regarded him from the neighboring desk, his aquamarine eyes wide under blunt, dark-blond bangs. The friendly-looking ox on the construction paper in front of him was scribbled over with red and orange lines that seemed unrelated to the animal in question.

Link dropped his eyes back to his desk and tightened his fist around the crayon. “Yup!” he chirped. He pressed the slanted tip back down to the page, but before he could continue his painstaking work, the other boy spoke again.

“I’m Rhett!”

Link knew who Rhett was; everybody did. It’s hard not to notice the kid who was already a head taller than everyone else, who ran the fastest on the playground, who charmed the pretty Miss Locklear with his cleverness. He was the envy of all the other boys. Link was naturally cautious — even at the age of five he instinctively understood that some kids were going to be the popular ones, and that made them dangerous. Still, his mother had raised him to be polite.

“Nice to meet you, Rhett,” he replied. He finished filling in the beast’s purple body and glanced up to see the boy still gazing at him with the corner of his mouth quirked up in amusement. Rhett seemed entirely disinterested in the coloring assignment that was meant to be their punishment, whereas Link strongly believed it was necessary to do as good a job as possible. He had no idea what had possessed him to deface his desk with a naughty word after seeing Rhett do the same, but something about the boy’s beguiling grin had made him want to impress him. And now that the deed was done and the punishment doled out, he needed to be absolved of the crime before the guilt ate him up from the inside out. 

“Link’s a weird name,” the blond boy observed. 

Link let out a quiet sigh and stared down to where his unicorn pranced in profile. The empty white circle of its uncolored eye stared back. _Here it comes,_ he thought.

Sure enough, Rhett asked the expected follow-up question. “It short for somethin’?”

Link set down the purple crayon and picked up the black one. “Yup.”

There was a silence, then Rhett prodded, “Well, what?”

The smaller boy pressed the black crayon into the small white circle. “Lincalian,” he said softly. 

“Lin _call_ ian?” Rhett’s soft drawl stretched the second syllable.

Link ducked his head in a nod, then risked looking up. It made him feel bolder that Rhett hadn’t laughed. “It’s not my first name, though,” Link explained. “My full name’s even weirder.” 

Rhett’s mouth formed an O of excitement. “What is it?”

Link felt the confusing mixture of embarrassment and pride that always accompanied this conversation. “Carolus Lincalian Neal.” 

“Golly!” Rhett giggled. “You sound like a prince or somethin’.” 

Link smiled. “Well I ain’t one, that’s for sure.” 

“I’m just plain ol’ Rhett James McLaughlin.” The boy’s tongue tripped slightly on the last name. “Named after a racecar driver. Who’re you named for?”

Link looked back down and began to move the crayon in tight spirals, filling in the unicorn’s entire eye with a slick, uniform black. “My dad,” he muttered. “The only thing he ever gave me. I never met ‘im.” 

He glanced up in time to see the flash of pity on the other boy’s face. It felt like a sliver of ice in his heart even though Rhett quickly masked it with a polite smile. Far worse than having a weird name in small-town North Carolina was living in a home without a mother and father joined in blessed, Christian matrimony. Link didn’t understand the circumstances of his birth — his mother deemed it a subject to be postponed until the magical age of “older” — but he had picked up enough hints from relatives to know it was nothing good. He’d gathered that his father’s role in his creation was a source of great shame for his family. 

For his part, Link had no memory of the man, though his daydreaming mind often conjured fantasies of a superhero, spy, or rocket scientist. He was sure that some great need had caused his father to abandon him and his mother and never contact them again, and one day he would find out what it was.

The unicorn’s eye was now filled in and gleamed like a chip of obsidian. He picked up a red crayon and colored in the hooves, going over and over the same spots until they were shining crimson. He felt Rhett watching him but refused to look up. Finally, the pressure of the other boy’s gaze relented and Link looked over to see Rhett bent over and scribbling green in the general vicinity of his animal’s feet. 

He realized he missed Rhett’s attention despite having just rejected it. He studied the boy’s narrow profile for a moment and then piped up, “You know he’s supposed to be blue, right?” 

“Huh?” Rhett raised a brow at him.

Link felt his cheeks heat. “That’s Babe. You know, the _blue_ ox? Paul Bunyan?” 

Rhett regarded his artwork for a moment, then shrugged. “Well now he’s a… a fire bull! They’re cooler than Babe. Very dangerous. They run through the prairies in a big stampede, tramplin’ villages and burnin’ down all the farms and stuff.” 

Link giggled. “That _is_ pretty cool.”

“Yeah. You don’t wanna make ‘em mad.” Rhett abruptly switched gears and folded his arms, leaning over and appraising Link’s neat handiwork like a buyer at an art gallery. “You’re good at coloring,” he said, then added almost as an afterthought, “We should be friends.”

Link felt a tremor through his chest, like the physical equivalent of the sound an old door makes when it creaks open. He licked his lips, uncertain. “You got loads of friends.”

“Nah. No one with a cool name like yours.”

Rhett was still leaning toward him. He smelled like fabric softener and freshly cut grass and was beaming at Link with the wide, winning smile of a boy who knew he was likable and was used to getting what he wanted. And for some reason, right now he wanted Link. 

As Link looked at him, he became aware of a faint glow emanating from Rhett’s immediate vicinity. It was a golden light, as if the sun were shining on his face, even though their desks were far from the sunbeams that came through the windows. Link blinked and stared and the glow seemed to intensify, shimmering on Rhett’s long eyelashes and giving him a crown of gold like the halos in the picture books about Jesus and the saints. It was a warm, welcoming light with tinges of forest green and honey, and it swelled and undulated with the boy’s inhalations. 

Link didn’t understand it, but he knew it made him feel safe. He was sure he wanted to stay close to that light. 

He carefully set down his crayon and rubbed his eyes with his fingertips. When he looked back up at the other boy, the light was gone, but the feeling of safety remained. Rhett, still waiting for his response, seemed oblivious to what had just happened. 

“Okay,” Link said. “We can be friends.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the encouragement after Part 1!

_June 1987_

Link’s legs burned as he struggled to keep up with the other boys, worried that if he lost sight of the bikes around the next corner that he’d lose them forever. Some twenty feet in front of him, Rhett turned and flashed a grin. “C’mon, brother!” he hollered before facing forward and standing up on his pedals to put on a burst of speed.

Link mimicked him, throwing the entirety of his slight weight into getting himself up the hill of the winding, narrow back road. When he crested the top, he saw Rhett barreling down the other side in pursuit of the three older boys far ahead of them. Rhett’s brother Cole and his friends Dave and Billy rode easily, as if they made this trip all the time… which they did.

This bicycle ride was the first part of the test and it was clear the older boys weren’t planning to go easy on them. Rhett had been pestering Cole for weeks to take him and Link to the abandoned shack the older boys had discovered in the forest at the edge of town. Cole had held out for a while, insisting that the place was too dangerous for “little baby third-graders.” Rhett’s assertion that he was nearly as tall as Cole despite being three years younger didn’t seem to hold water. It was only when he threatened to tell their dad about Cole’s visits to the place that the older boy acquiesced. 

“You’re not gonna slow us down,” he had warned, and was now making good on his promise. Link resisted the urge to brake as he flew down the hill, trying to close the gap, and his front wheel wobbled alarmingly when it hit a patch of sand at the bottom. He gritted his teeth and pedaled through, panting with exertion and trying to toss the sweat from his eyes without letting go of the handlebars.

He didn’t even particularly care about this shack in the woods, but Rhett did, and he cared about being with Rhett. The past two and a half years since the other boy declared them friends had seen a slow but steady strengthening of that bond and now, when Rhett casually called him “brother,” it made him feel happy and secure. They both had other friends, too, but Link always felt like they were seeing them out of obligation — at least, when he was playing with other boys, he often found himself impatient for the time he’d see Rhett again. 

Besides, while he’d begun seeing colored light around other people since that moment in Miss Locklear’s detention, none of Link’s other friends ever shimmered as beautifully as Rhett. His mother had a silvery-white gleam at times and Cole flashed deep blue at the McLaughlin dinner table, for example, but no one’s glow was as interesting or as complex as the green-golden light that came over Rhett in the quiet moments when they were alone and their eyes met, before Link blinked and it was gone.

It made him wonder what his own colors might be, but saw no hint of them when he looked in the mirror. He’d asked Rhett once, a few months into their friendship, as they ran their Matchbox cars through the thick shag carpet of the boy’s bedroom floor, “What color am I?”

Rhett had looked over at him with a raised brow, then grinned as if Link were making a joke. “Uh. White?” he guessed.

“Really?” _Like my mom_ , Link thought.

“Well you sure as heck ain’t Black!” Rhett laughed.

Link giggled. “That’s not what I meant! I mean, like, around me, around my head and stuff. Like Jesus.”

Rhett stared at him with his mouth hanging open before breaking into a high-pitched guffaw. He fell onto his side and looked up at Link, still laughing. “Like _Jesus_?!”

Link felt himself blush. He prodded Rhett’s shoulder with the heel of his hand. “You know what I mean, stop foolin’.”

The other boy’s laughter ceased and his brow crinkled. “No I don’t.”

There was a sinking feeling in Link’s stomach. “You don’t see colors around people sometimes?”

“Nope.” Rhett sat up and looked serious. “You do?”

Link toyed with the tiny metal car in his lap. He didn’t like how Rhett was looking at him. He didn’t want to be weird. “Nah. I was jokin’.” He tossed the toy at Rhett, catching him by surprise as it bounced off his chest. “Gotcha!”

“Ha!” the other boy lunged forward, grappling Link around the waist and bearing him to the ground. Soon their moment of awkwardness was washed away in a tangle of improvised wrestling moves and shrieks of laughter. Rhett’s long and narrow limbs wrapped around him instantly made him feel accepted again, and he fought against them only because he knew it was expected of him.

***

That night, Link was sitting with his mother as they ate dinner in front of the television. He asked her, “Mama, why can’t Rhett see colors around people like I can?”

Sue dabbed her mouth with a napkin and turned to him. “What do you mean, honey?”

“The colors around people sometimes, like a… a halo or somethin’. Rhett can’t see ‘em.”

His mother regarded him with lips pressed together for a few seconds before putting down her fork and getting up to turn off the TV. When she sat back down, the couch creaked in a room that was suddenly very quiet. “Tell me about it,” she said gently.

Link described the colors to her, Rhett’s honey-green and Cole’s blue and her silvery white and the other kids’ assorted oranges and purples and reds, and how he only saw them in brief moments when he was really focusing on a person. She listened with her eyes fixed on his face, then said, “Well, baby, the reason Rhett can’t see them is ‘cause most folks can’t. You’re special.”

“You can’t see them?”

“No.”

“Why am I special?” 

She looked down and twisted her hands in her lap before giving him a tight smile. “It must be because God has big plans for you.”

It wasn’t a satisfying answer, especially because it implied God didn’t have big plans for Rhett, which didn’t seem right. But before Link could ask another question, his mother said, “But listen, honey, this is something you need to keep to yourself. People wouldn’t understand. Have you told anyone other than Rhett?” 

“No, mama.” 

“Good. Can you promise me you won’t talk to him about it again? And don’t tell anyone else. It’ll be just for you and me.”

“Not even Nana?” 

“Not even Nana.”

“But why? The colors are so pretty.”

She took his hand and held it. “It might scare people or make them angry. We might have to move away. You don’t want that, do you?”

“No!” Link’s chest tightened and tears sprang to his eyes. “No, I don’t wanna move away!”

“Okay, baby, okay. Just don’t tell anyone and we can stay.” 

She hugged him hard enough to squeeze the air from his lungs and he snuffled against her shoulder as he promised to keep it to himself. As she held him and stroked his hair, his panic subsided as quickly as it had risen. She got up and turned the TV back on, signaling the end of the conversation. Link poked at the remnants of his dinner but couldn’t swallow another bite. 

That night, he was woken by a faint noise coming through the wall that separated his bedroom from his mother’s. After a few seconds he was able to pick out her murmured voice in the rhythmic cadence of prayer. As he lay in the darkness and focused on the sound, it became clearer. “He’s just a little boy,” he pleaded. “Dear God, take care of him. Please don’t do this. Don’t let this happen to him.” Her next words were swallowed by a sob, then all he could hear was muffled weeping. 

His stomach twisted and his eyes burned. He had never heard terror in his mother’s voice before. Was it because of what he’d told her about the colors? He’d already agreed not to tell anyone else, and between her reaction and Rhett’s he was determined to keep that promise. He couldn’t bear the thought of being taken away from this comfortable, safe little town. He lay awake long after the noises from the other room subsided, guilt and fear sitting on his chest like a block of ice. 

***

Now, two and a half years later, he’d kept his promise. His mother never brought up the subject of the colors and he didn’t either. He was ashamed of it, after all. Despite his mother’s claim that it came from him being “special,” it had also made her cry and caused Rhett to laugh at him. He did his best to ignore the colors when they appeared and act like they were just a trick of the light. However, he still couldn’t help but admire the rich hues of Rhett’s at times like these as his friend pedaled ahead of him down the road, leaving sparks of emerald and gold in his wake.

The older boys veered off the paved road onto a dirt path that was little more than a muddy washout sloping gently down an area dense with trees and undergrowth. They soon had to abandon their bikes and continue on foot over the rocky and root-strewn path. Cole and his friends still moved quickly, causing the two younger boys to hustle behind them. More than once, Link’s toes caught on the uneven ground and he stumbled but managed to keep from going all the way down. Rhett’s longer legs served him better.

They soon emerged into a small clearing that held the target of their quest: a rotting, single-story shack. It was surrounded by various debris, from twisted scrap metal to broken pieces of furniture hidden among the knee-high weeds. Cole had said the previous owner must have accumulated junk of all kinds and there were all sorts of treasures half-buried on the property.

As Link and Rhett stood in awe at the edge of the clearing, the other boys forged their way confidently toward the structure, demonstrating their mastery of the place. Link hung back as Rhett followed them, and he watched as Cole shouldered open the door of the shack. The creak of rusty hinges wavered through the clearing and made Link’s hair stand on end.

One by one the boys disappeared into the darkness of the interior until Rhett paused in the doorway and turned back. “C’mon!” he shouted with a wave, spurring Link out of his uncertainty. The small boy picked his way through the grass-choked scrapheap and followed his friend inside. 

The door opened into a large main room with a countertop running along one wall with cutouts where a refrigerator and stove once stood. A smaller room and bathroom — “No running water,” Cole had cautioned, “So stay off the toilet.” — comprised the rest of the edifice. None of the windows had glass anymore and a few of the floorboards sank alarmingly under their weight. The whole place smelled of old rot and animal scat. 

There was nothing really interesting to speak of inside, but for a group of young boys, the excitement of having a place all to themselves was enough to entertain them for a good hour. They sat on the countertop and lounged against the wall and made up theories as to who had once lived there and what adventure or tragedy had made them leave. 

Eventually they got bored of the inside and forged back outside to entertain themselves with roughhousing in the yard’s scrap metal obstacle course. Cole and his friends chased each other in a makeshift game of tag and tossed a half-deflated soccer ball around. The smaller duo were generally outmatched and left to their own devices, which was fine with Link. 

At one point the three elders roughhoused their way around to the front of the house, leaving Rhett and Link alone in the backyard. The taller boy turned to the other with a gleam in his eye, and Link barely had time to brace himself before Rhett’s arms were around his waist and he was being hoisted into the air. He let out a squeak and kicked his legs as he scrabbled at Rhett’s shoulders, trying to gain purchase. He was momentarily weightless until Rhett’s knees buckled and they both crashed to the ground. 

A couple of years watching wrestling on television and practicing on each other had added more sophistication to their maneuvers, but they still tended to end up with rug-burned knees and bruised elbows. Rhett’s long limbs usually gave him an advantage, but Link’s more compact frame allowed him to squirm out of most holds. The real breakthrough had come a few months ago when a chance clawing for leverage against Rhett’s torso revealed the taller boy’s true weakness: he was incredibly ticklish.

Ignoring the fact that tickling was not a common tactic in the WWF, it had become Link’s go-to attack when Rhett tried to pin him. In response, Rhett would try to grapple his wrists and arms to neutralize the threat. Now, they assumed these roles as they rolled around on the long, matted grasses of the backyard, kicking their legs and giggling. Rhett’s body, warm and slick from the summer sun, pressed against Link’s through their thin cotton clothing with a pleasantness the smaller boy didn’t quite understand. As much as he was struggling to escape Rhett’s grasp, part of him whispered, _Maybe not try too hard._

He was distracted by the confusing way his skin seemed to come alive where Rhett touched it, and it interfered with his reaction time at a crucial moment. Suddenly he found himself in the air again as the other boy rose up on his knees and lifted Link by his hips, slinging him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Link’s world spun as Rhett tossed him up with a triumphant grunt, flipping him head over heels until he slammed his backside flat onto the ground.  

There was a sudden, searing hot pain at the base of Link’s spine just above the waistband of his shorts, as if he were being stabbed and burned at the same time. He screamed and twisted his body to the side, instinctively flinching away from the source of the agony. The pain immediately subsided to a dull throb, but the shock of it remained, and he whimpered in a fetal position with his eyes clenched shut. 

He became aware of Rhett calling his name in a panic. “Link? Link! On my gosh, what’s wrong?”

At his friend’s careful touch on his shoulder, Link squinched open his eyes and blinked up to see Rhett kneeling at his head. The color had left Rhett’s face and he looked on the verge of tears. “What did I do?” the boy whispered.

“I don’t know!” Link sniffled. “It felt like… like a burn. On my back.” 

He felt Rhett’s tentative touch on the skin of his waist where his shirt had ridden up during their wrestling, then heard the boy take a sharp intake of breath. “It’s red,” Rhett reported. “It does look like a burn.”

“But how—“ Link twisted carefully, then sat all the way up. Both of them looked at the place where Rhett had thrown him down and there, half-embedded in the dirt, was a black lump about the size of a golf ball, pointed on one end. Just looking at it caused a shiver up Link’s spine. He watched as Rhett reached out and held his hand close to the object, feeling for heat, then quickly tapped it with his finger. His face filled with confusion and he stared at Link, open-mouthed, as he dug his fingers into the dirt and pulled out the piece of metal.

“It’s cold,” he said. He brushed off the dirt and held it up. It looked like the top piece of a wrought-iron fence. Its black surface was pitted and curled with rust. Link reached out and touched it with the tip of his finger, then yelped and pulled his hand back. It was the same burning, stabbing sensation he’d felt on his back, but not as badly because the touch had been so light. He stuck the stinging digit into his mouth and stared at Rhett with wide eyes. “Why doesn’t it hurt you?” he mumbled.

“The real question is, why does it hurt you? It’s just an old piece of fence.”

The two boys regarded each other in silence. Link’s back still throbbed where his skin had touched the metal, and his heart was pounding hard. He was frightened. 

At that moment, Cole rounded the corner of the house with the other boys in tow. Instinctively, Link tugged his shirt back down over the burn and tried to look natural. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rhett slip the piece of metal into the cargo pocket of his shorts. 

“What’re you turds doin’?” Cole demanded.

“Nothin’,” Rhett insisted as both boys got to their feet.

“Thought I heard Link yell.” 

“I tripped but I’m fine.” Link suppressed a wince as his shirt chafed against the raw skin on his back.

Cole raised his eyebrow at Dave and Billy, who smirked back at him. Their expressions seemed to say _dumb kids,_ and for once Link was fine with that. Cole shrugged and declared, “Well, it’s time to go home. You’ve seen the place, now you can stop buggin’ me about it.”

Rhett nodded quickly. “Yup. Thanks, Cole.”

They closed up the shack, hiked back to their bikes, and rode off toward home. If Cole noticed the boys had gone quiet, he didn’t say anything. This time, when Link hung back from the group, Rhett stayed with him. Once they got to the main road, they knew their way home without Cole’s guidance, so they let the older boys go on ahead and took their time. 

The two boys rode side by side on the empty streets with the setting sun in their eyes. Link felt his best friend’s gaze on him frequently but he kept his own eyes on the road. He didn’t want to think about what had just happened. He didn’t want to be different from Rhett in yet another way. The pretty colors he saw on occasion were one thing, but this metal — whatever it was — felt dangerous. Even now, the thought of the piece of iron in Rhett’s pocket made his stomach turn.

The two boys reached the stoplight at the center of Buies Creek and rolled to a stop. Link turned his front wheel left toward his house. “You don’t wanna come back with me?” Rhett asked.

Link looked over at the other boy. Motes of green and gold swirled around Rhett’s shoulders, glimmering against the ruddy tones of the setting sun behind him. Part of Link wanted to stay close to this beauty, but the burning ache in his spine drowned out that desire. “Nah,” he said. “I got some stuff to do.”

“Okay.” Rhett’s fingertips trailed awkwardly down Link’s arm before withdrawing. “Sorry I threw you down on the ground.”

“It’s okay. I had fun until that happened.” He flashed the taller boy a grin, which Rhett returned with evident relief. 

“You think your back’s gonna be okay?” he asked.

Link nodded. “Barely even feel it now.”

“Good.” Rhett scuffed his toe through some sand on the road under his pedals. “You wanna come over tomorrow?”

There was no doubt. “Yeah!”

“Cool!”

They exchanged more smiles before they turned away from each other and headed to their respective homes. When Link got to his, he rested his bike against the porch and went inside. He called a quick hello to his mother before going to his bedroom and shutting the door. He went to the mirror hanging on the back of his closet and hiked up his t-shirt as he twisted to bring his lower back into view.

He sucked in a quick breath at the sight of the small, mottled red splotch just above his waistband. The skin was raised and angry and it hurt like the bad sunburn he’d gotten last summer when he fell asleep by the pool. He tentatively pressed a thumb at the edge and winced at the sharp ache that bloomed from it. “What the heck?” he whispered. _Why did that little chunk of rusty metal hurt me and not Rhett?_

_What’s wrong with me?_


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: This chapter contains bullying, brief physical assault, homophobic slurs and gender essentialist language.

The burn on Link’s back faded and healed over the next few days until only a small pink scar remained. Even though he saw Rhett nearly every day for the rest of that summer, neither of them brought up the strange phenomenon of the iron fence piece, instead choosing to focus on the activities and conversations they’d grown to enjoy together. The bright Carolina sunshine cooled into autumn and the excitement of going back to school seemed to drive all memories of the incident from Rhett’s head. Link did his best to forget it as well.

Life progressed in a relatively normal fashion for the young boys over the next few years, with no more inexplicable injuries on Link’s part. He continued to see the occasional aura (as he began to call the colors) and even discovered that he could “read” them to gain clues as to how a person might act toward him. Their fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Thomas, was a bitter old crone who yelled at them any chance she got, and her aura was a sickly brown-streaked amber. The lunch ladies who made sure Link always got his milk even when his mother forgot to give him a dime had cheerful halos of purples and pinks.  He began to base his initial impressions on the colors he saw and found he was rarely wrong. 

Rhett’s aura remained the most beautiful. Sometimes when the two boys were sitting under a tree in the McLaughlin’s back yard, deep in intense conversations about dinosaurs or baseball or the meaning of life, Link would look over and see the green-gold glimmer swirling through the air around his friend. It seemed brighter than the sun and always made him smile with its warmth. When Rhett would ask him why, he’d shrug and say it’s because he was happy. It wasn’t a lie.

Sixth grade brought an added challenge to Link’s young life: puberty. It wasn’t a concern for him personally, yet, but many girls had already begun to display intriguing new attributes and most boys didn’t seem far behind. One by one he heard his peers’ voices begin to crack and saw the first hints of hair appearing on upper lips and cheeks. Each morning he inspected his face in the mirror to see if it was his turn, but it never seemed to be. 

He didn’t feel that bad about it until April of that year when some boys stayed after school to play a makeshift soccer game, shirts versus skins. As Rhett stood shirtless next to him, grinning and wild with the pleasure of competition, Link glimpsed a tiny wisp of coppery hair on the boy’s chest. He recalled the occasional hoarseness in his friend’s voice last week and realized what it meant. Suddenly he had the horrible sense he was being left behind. 

By this point in their friendship, Rhett was well-tuned to his moods. He chose a moment when the action moved to the other end of the field to sidle up to Link. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

Link tried to play it cool, but felt himself blushing. “You’ve got chest hair,” he pointed out.

“Hah, yeah,” Rhett puffed out his ribcage proudly. “Came in last week.” 

“Good for you,” Link muttered as he turned back to watch the ball. 

“Hey, don’t worry,” Rhett clapped him on the back, fingertips dancing down Link’s spine as they withdrew. “I got eight months on you after all. You’ll get yours soon enough.” 

Link had smiled and tried not to worry. But as time passed, he didn’t get it soon enough. Over that summer, his voice stayed high while more and more other boys’ voices deepened. His face and chest remained smooth while Rhett developed a patchy blond beard along his jawline. Out of desperation he went to his mother and asked if something was wrong with him. She dodged the question with an uncharacteristic awkwardness and returned from her nursing job the next day with a book she encouraged him to read by himself. While it explained many fascinating aspects of the human body he hadn’t even known existed, it still didn’t tell him for certain when it would be _his_ turn to experience them.

One saving grace was that he still continued to grow; though he had no hope of catching up with Rhett, he was above average height among the boys in their grade. He stretched tall and slim and the roundness of his cheeks disappeared, leaving his cheekbones and chin sharp. 

One morning that summer between sixth and seventh grade, as he was getting ready to meet Rhett at the creek for a day of rock skipping and tree climbing, he paused in front of the mirror for his customary search for hair in places that should be growing it by now. As he turned his head from side to side, inspecting his chin, something caught his eye and he did a double take. He reached over the top of his head to pull his hair up on the opposite side, then breathed, “What the…?”

His ear, which had always been rather small and close to his head compared to some boys’, had developed a subtle point at the top. It wasn’t terribly obvious, but it undeniable if he looked closely. He turned and inspected the other one to find it looked the same. He pinched the thin cartilage between his fingers hard enough to make himself yelp, but it didn’t feel like there was anything out of the ordinary, like a tumor or something. It had just… grown that way. 

He stared at his reflection in horror and racked his brain for what he’d read in that embarrassing book. As far as he knew, pointy ears were _not_ a normal sign of puberty. It was instead, he suspected, a sign of being some sort of freaky mutant. He paced a few rapid circles around his bed as he pressed his hair down as flat as it would go against his head, then checked the mirror again — only to curse when he saw it didn’t obscure his ears nearly enough. He resolved to grow out his hair as soon as possible and searched through his closet for a baseball hat.

When he met Rhett at the riverbank, the other boy raised a brow at Link’s new accessory. The blue hat with the Charlotte Hornets logo was too large for him and he’d pulled it low as it would go, obscuring his vision as well as his ears. “What’s up with that hat?” the blond demanded, always one to get right to the point.

“Just felt like wearing it,” Link answered gruffly. 

“How come?”

“No reason.“

“Well it looks silly.”

Link faced out toward the water, feeling petulant. “Shut up, no one asked you.”

“It hides your face.”

“No one wants to see my face.” 

“That’s not true.” 

Link peeked up from under the low brim in time to see Rhett look away with a strange expression on his face. Link barely had time to say, “What do you—“ before Rhett reached out a hand and snatched the hat from his head with a bark of triumph.

“Hey!” Link lunged for it as Rhett held it up high. The ensuing game of keep-away transformed Link’s annoyance into giggles. Though their tussling had gotten increasingly rough over the years as their skill improved, they were both careful to avoid injuring the other on the rocky shoreline. Eventually Rhett managed to flop his larger body across Link’s chest and pin him down, and Link could do nothing to budge him. Rhett’s hands pressed the smaller boy’s wrists into the mud, neutralizing the ever-present threat of tickling.

“I’m dead,” Rhett droned, as if it weren’t obvious what move he was pulling.

Link struggled briefly, arching his body up against Rhett’s and trying to tug his wrists free, before he rolled his eyes in mock bitterness and relaxed his muscles in defeat. “Fine,” he huffed, doing his best to ignore the soft clean scent of Rhett’s skin. “You can keep the stupid hat if you want it so badly.”

Rhett released him as he sat up and put the hat on backwards, pulling a face that Link guessed was supposed to be “gangster.” 

“You’re a dork,” Link pointed out without any venom. 

“Well you’re a dweeb.” Rhett continued to look proud of himself.

As both boys clambered to their feet, Link remembered the reason for the hat in the first place and raised a hand to his hair, trying to smooth it as far down as it would go. Unfortunately, the action had the opposite effect of drawing Rhett’s attention to the very thing Link wanted to hide. “Hey!” the taller boy barked. “What’s that?”

Before Link could respond, Rhett had leaned over and pushed the hair on the side of his head up. The larger boy ran a fingertip over the pointed ridge of his ear and Link shivered and pulled away, but not before the startlingly pleasant sensation sent a trail of tingling down his neck. He felt a blush creep up his cheeks. “It’s nothing,” he insisted.

“Lemme see the other one.” Rhett’s hand grasped Link’s chin and turned his head for additional inspection. Link closed his eyes and forced himself to stay still as a finger traced the other thin cartilage in the same manner. He braced himself for teasing, but instead the other boy cried, “Link, that is _so_ cool!” 

“Huh?” Link opened his eyes, expecting to see mockery, but instead Rhett’s admiration seemed genuine. “It’s not cool! It’s freaky.”

“It _is_ cool. You’re like Spock!”

The half-Vulcan Star Trek character was admittedly the second-coolest guy on the show (after Captain Kirk of course), but also a weirdo alien who was mocked for being different. That wasn’t appealing to Link at all.   

“I don’t wanna be Spock,” he pouted. He scrubbed roughly at one ear with his fingertips. “I wanna be normal. I wanna have puberty like the rest of you.” 

“Well, obviously you’re not really Spock,” Rhett reasoned. “It’s just some weird way your ears are growing. Maybe you sleep on ‘em weird. It looks dope, though. And for the rest, you just have to wait, brother. You’ll hit puberty soon enough. You must have a little hair by now, huh?” He poked the smaller boy playfully in the chest.

In frustration, Link lifted the hem of his t-shirt and yanked the garment off over his head, holding it in his fist. “Look at this!” he pointed at the ridges of his sternum just under the skin. “Not a single hair!” He lifted his head up, displaying his chin and neck for inspection in the dappled sunlight under the riverbank trees.

He watched Rhett’s eyes rove over him, and there was an intensity in the boy’s gaze that made his heart quicken. It seemed like a hunger, as if Rhett were all too happy to comply with Link’s demand that he examine his body. Link’s blush, which had faded, began to bloom again. The attention made him feel good but it was overwhelming at the same time. “Nevermind,” he muttered, moving to don the shirt again. 

“No, wait?” Rhett pitched his voice to make it a request as he stepped forward, almost toe-to-toe. Link froze as Rhett bent down to scrutinize his chest, bringing up his hands to run them feather-light over the smaller boy’s protruding collarbones. Rhett’s green-gold aura flared as Link’s skin seemed to thrum at the contact. Link closed his eyes against the brightness and felt the other boy’s soft breath on his throat.

The world seemed to pause for a moment; even the water rushing in the stream beside them grew still. Then Rhett dropped his hands and stepped back. “You’re right,” he said in a strained voice. “No hair yet.”

Link opened his eyes to see the other boy looking away from him, out over the water. His face was flushed. “Told you,” Link grumbled as he pulled his shirt back on. 

“You’re not — I mean,” Rhett stumbled over his words. “You still look good though, like — you look… fine. It’s obvious you’re, um, growing up.”

The conversation was making Link incredibly self-conscious, but his curiosity won out. “How so?” 

Rhett gestured vaguely, still not looking at him. “Your shoulders are gettin’ broad and you got… muscles and stuff. And an Adam’s apple that’s bigger’n mine! You’re just not gettin’ hairy is all.”

Link was surprised Rhett noticed that kind of thing. He ran a couple fingers over the sharp protuberance at his throat and felt it vibrate when he spoke. “I don’t wanna look weird.”

Rhett licked his lips and turned back to him, following Link’s fingers with his eyes. “You look great, Link. Trust me.”

Even though Link’s first instinct was to brush off the compliment like all the other reassurances, he realized that it did make him feel better to hear Rhett say it. Rhett’s opinion mattered more to him than anyone else’s, except maybe his mother’s, but she had to love him no matter what. Rhett had chosen to be his best friend and now Rhett thought he looked good, and he liked that a lot. “Thanks,” he said. 

Rhett bent to search the riverbank for a good skipping stone and Link followed suit, ending the conversation by mutual silent agreement. Soon enough they had moved on from their momentary awkwardness and slipped into their usual conversations, until the sun began to go down and they said goodbye. Link took the hat back from him and wore it home, backwards like a gangster this time. 

***

_January 1991_

He expected his mother to insist on cutting his hair, but when he told her he wanted to grow it out, she didn’t argue. There were times when he thought he saw her looking at his profile with a somber expression, but whenever he turned to face her she would break into a smile. She never commented on his ears and he never asked her about them. 

Even though his longer hair successfully concealed his deformity (as he thought of it), that didn’t prevent the other kids from thinking he was weird for other reasons. They sensed he was different, somehow, and that was enough to turn some of them hostile. Fortunately for him, Rhett remained popular as they grew and Link was begrudgingly tolerated by association.  

Gym class was the most precarious time for him, socially speaking, specifically the brief windows at the beginning and end of class when the boys changed clothes in the locker room. Rhett and Link always changed together with Link in the corner and Rhett standing between him and the other boys. They’d never discussed it explicitly, but somehow Rhett knew Link felt safer with him acting as a shield. 

In addition to his persistent lack of body hair, he’d also noticed that his skin no longer tanned like it used to; instead, it remained a pale and unblemished milky white, like nana’s wedding porcelain. A few times he deliberately set out to get a sunburn by sitting outside with a book for hours in the brutal summer sun, but it didn’t have any effect at all. Rhett, whose light complexion burned and peeled and burned again, was in awe of Link’s newfound “talent.” Like everything else, though, Link would’ve traded it in an instant in order to be like everyone else.

He didn’t want the other boys to see his pale hairlessness in the locker room, so he always waited until Rhett’s large form was blocking their view before hastily changing his clothes. However, his strategy broke down one day halfway through seventh grade, when their gym teacher kept Rhett after class to talk to him about his prospects for the varsity basketball team. Link stalled as long as he could, sorting through his clothes and folding and refolding them over and over while he listened to the other boys pack up and leave. Eventually it fell quiet and he jumped at the sound of a voice behind him.

“Yah scared to change without yer bodyguard here or whut?” 

John Carson’s voice had already cracked into a deep Southern drawl at the age of thirteen and he had the makings of a scraggly mustache atop his sneering lip. The boy had had it in for Link ever since third grade, but Rhett had stood up for Link with a single punch to John’s gut and everyone had considered the manner ended… until now, apparently. Now, as Link sized up the stocky brown-haired boy in front of him, he felt dread coil in his stomach. John Carson’s aura churned around him with the sickly reddish yellow of an old bruise. Even if he hadn’t already known how bad the boy was, the color would have kept Link far away. 

Except that here, in the corner of the locker room, there was nowhere for him to go that wouldn’t take him directly past John and his two lackeys who leered behind him. The rest of the locker room was ominously silent. 

Link glared at John, straightening the shoulders that had instinctively cringed forward. “Nope,” he said.

“Then what’re you waitin’ fer?” The three boys were already in their regular school clothes. 

“Nothin’.” To demonstrate his purported fearlessness, Link grasped the hem of his gym shirt and pulled it swiftly off. He turned away from them to pick up his clean t-shirt and was fumbling to find the bottom opening to pull over his head when he was shoved forward by a strong hand between his shoulder blades. He reached out just in time to catch the locker door with his palm instead of his face, and the slap of his hand on the metal reverberated off the walls.

“Hold on now, we wanna see what yer always tryin’ to hide.” There was a dark chuckle that was echoed by two other voices. The same meaty hand that had shoved him spun Link around by the shoulder and tugged his t-shirt out of his stunned grasp, tossing it over his shoulder to one of the boys behind him. 

Link stood in the corner in his blue shorts with his hands balled into fists, fighting the urge to cover his chest with his hands. “Gimme my shirt,” he demanded, cursing the tremor in his voice. 

John ignored him and instead let out a mocking wolf whistle. “Hoo-ee, Linky, look at you! Whiter’n a fishbelly and so scrawny and bony. Not a lick o’ hair on you at all. You sure you’re a boy?” The other two boys laughed as if it were the funniest joke in the world.

“Shut up,” Link muttered.

“What was that, sissy boy?” John chuckled. “Is that what you are? A sissy? Or are you just a girl? Girls don’t belong in the boys’ locker room, ya know.”

Link’s heart hammered in his chest. “Screw you!” he shouted. “I’m not a girl!” He attempted to lunge for the boy holding his shirt, but John’s shoulder collided with his chest and knocked the wind out of him as it shoved him back against the lockers. The back of Link’s head hit with another metallic clang, hard enough for him to see stars. 

When his vision cleared, John was standing close enough that Link could smell the sour tang of his sweat. ”Maybe we should check to see if you’re hairless everywhere,” he sneered. “Maybe we should make sure you even got a dick. Sure don’t look like it.” 

Link’s stomach clenched with fear and humiliation. “No! Leave me alone!” 

The two other boys closed in on either side as Link tried to shove John away from him, but the boy laughed again and grabbed his arms easily. It wasn’t like wrestling with Rhett, where his friend took care not to hurt him; John crushed the small bones of his wrists against each other hard enough to make Link cry out.

“What don’t you want us to see, sissy boy?” John spat. The other boys took ahold of Link’s arms as John barred his forearm across Link’s throat and reached down with the other hand for the drawstring on Link’s shorts. Link’s vision began to darken and he struggled to draw enough breath to scream, kicking out blindly. 

All he could hear was the boys’ slimy, derisive laughter until a shout cut through it. “Get off him!” The weight on his throat was abruptly lifted, then his arms were released amidst the clang of other bodies hitting lockers. He fell to his knees, coughing, then looked up to see Rhett glowering over the three boys he had thrown to the ground. Rhett looked impossibly tall in that moment, and as far as Link was concerned the boy’s tank top and shorts might as well have been the costume of a Greek god. 

John Carson and the others seemed sufficiently intimidated that they were no longer an immediate threat. Link focused on catching his breath and stayed on the floor as he watched the scene unfold. “What were y’all doing to ‘im?” Rhett growled.

“He’s a fuckin’ freak,” John mumbled, looking at the floor. “You know it. We just put him in his place.”

“His place is far above the likes o’ you shitheads.” Rhett lashed out a foot and kicked the locker right next to John’s head; the metal clang merged with the boy’s cry of surprise and fear. Rhett leaned down and jabbed a finger in the other kid’s flushed face. “If I ever hear about you messin’ with him again… lay a hand on ‘im, or even talk about ‘im… I’ll beat you so bad you’ll never walk straight again.” Rhett’s voice was deeper and stronger than Link had ever heard it. 

John shrugged as he got to his feet. “Whatever, dude.” He was trying to look tough in front of his cronies, but there was a tremor in his voice and it was clear the fight was over. Still, he couldn’t resist a parting shot. “Fucking fairy’s lucky he’s got you for his daddy, since his real pa’s done run off.” 

“Fuck you,” Rhett spat. “Get the fuck outta here.” Rhett stood between Link and the boys as they left the locker room with just enough swagger to show they weren’t really scared. For a moment it was silent, then Rhett turned and dropped to his knees next to Link. “You okay, buddy?”

Link’s eyes burned with tears of shame and relief. He tried to blink them back, but soon they were falling freely. “Yeah, I’m… m’ fine,” he sniffled. 

“Hey, I’m here. You’re safe.” Rhett sat down and opened his arms and Link leaned into them, his need for comfort warring with the embarrassment of crying in front of his friend. 

“Wish I could take care of m’self,” he mumbled.

He felt Rhett’s lips press briefly into his hair. “It wasn’t a fair fight,” the boy insisted. “Heck, a three-on-one ambush woulda gotten anybody. I’m just glad I got back when I did.”

Link felt a fresh rush of tears when he remembered what John had said. “They’re right, though. My dad did run off. And I _am_ a freak. I do look like a girl.” 

Rhett arms tightened around him. “You really don’t, Link. If they think that, they’ve never seen a girl before. You’ve got, uh… a really nice body.”

Link looked up to see Rhett’s flushed face inches from his own, and smiled. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.” 

“Nuh-uh.”

“Well, yours is nice too, then.”

“Nah, mine’s just freakishly big.”

“It saved my ass today, it’s good for somethin’.”

Rhett laughed and clambered to his feet before reaching out to help Link up. On impulse, Link kept Rhett’s hand clasped between them as he rose up and hugged the boy around the waist with his free arm. “Thanks, man,” he mumbled into Rhett’s warm chest.

Rhett clapped him on the back. “Any time, brother.” 

They separated and Link grinned as he retrieved his shirt and pulled it on. They changed the rest of their clothes in a hurry, knowing the next period bell would ring any second. Adrenaline made Link’s limbs tingle as they walked down the hall toward French class. He tried not to think about what a close call he’d just had. But aside from the risk of getting beaten up, he realized he didn’t care what John Carson and his goons thought of him. Rhett didn’t judge him for how he looked or who his father was. Rhett came to the rescue like a knight in shining armor and didn’t even make fun of Link for needing his help after. Rhett made him feel safe. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are descriptions of “witchcraft” here, but it’s the pulpy 70’s kind, not anything legitimate. Any resemblances to real-life Wiccan/Pagan ceremonies is purely coincidental. 
> 
> Warning: This chapter contains minor intentional injury and blood.

After the incident in the locker room, John Carson and the other bullies kept their distance. Link remained vigilant, however, worried they were only biding their time until they could catch him apart from Rhett again. It galled him to feel dependent on his friend for protection; even though he enjoyed the taller boy’s company, he hated that he had to stay with him in order to be safe. For his part, Rhett seemed to take pride in being Link’s protector and never teased him about it. He always insisted Link needed his help simply because the bullies wouldn’t fight fair.

Link grew taller over the next few years, though he never came close to catching up with Rhett. His shoulders broadened further but his waist stayed slim. His face became more angular, his jawline sharpening until his strong nose and chin took on the appearance of chiseled marble. His dark eyebrows and eyelashes framed intense cobalt-blue eyes whose intensity seemed to startle people the first time they met him.

His ebony hair grew long and curly, falling in thick waves to his shoulders. Sometimes it annoyed him getting into his eyes or being hot and sweaty in the summer, but he never tied it back, so his ears remained hidden to all but Rhett. When they swam together in the Cape Fear River and the water slicked his hair down, he sometimes saw Rhett looking at the side of his head with a soft smile, as if he enjoyed knowing Link’s secret.

In a way, Link’s pointed cartilage was the least of the secrets they shared between them. Together for hours nearly every day, their conversation rambled far beyond television shows and movies to the deeper questions of life. They constructed complex theories about who Link’s father may have been (Rhett favored the James Bond idea) and came up with elaborate plans on how they might track him down. They also began to explore what they wanted to do with their lives once they escaped the tiny town of Buies Creek. 

They even talked about girls. At this point, though they were just finishing up their first year of high school, Rhett was never lacking in romantic prospects. He’d “dated” a few girls over the years in the way that young teenagers do, only seeing them at school and group outings to movies and arcades. Of course he always brought Link along when they went out, and two of them dominated the conversation with their jokes while Rhett’s girlfriend and the other kids laughed from the sidelines.

Link followed suit as best he could, not wanting to be unusual in this regard as well. And with Rhett’s assistance combined with his own unique appeal — some girls found his unusual features quite compelling — he had some success. His relationships tended to be shorter than Rhett’s, though. He was terrible at making conversation with his girlfriends, perhaps because when he was alone with them his mind often wandered to wondering what Rhett was up to. Plus, when a few brave girls had initiated their first kisses with him, he had hesitated to let it go on too long. He knew from television that kissing could lead to all sorts of activities that would reveal his pointed ears (or even his hairless body), and he didn’t trust any of these girls enough. 

Besides, he didn’t want it to go farther than that. The kissing was pleasant enough (their lips were soft and tasted like strawberry chapstick) but he never felt the tingling in his skin or the butterflies in his stomach that books and movies said he should feel when he kissed someone he loved. 

He worried this was yet another way he was different from everyone else, and like usual, he sought reassurance from Rhett. They were sitting on the floor of Rhett’s bedroom listening to Wu-Tang Clan and playing poker for Skittles when Link admitted this feeling of indifference toward physical intimacy with girls. Rhett looked up from his hand and smiled. “It’s cool,” he said, “I’m not really interested in doing more than kissing either.” He picked up a few green candies from the pile in front of him and popped them into his mouth. “With them, anyway,” he amended.

Link was relieved that Rhett hadn’t laughed, and in fact seemed to relate to his feelings. He regarded the blond boy from where he sat cross-legged against the wall. “Whaddya mean?” 

Rhett toyed with his cards. “I mean… it’s complicated.” He shrugged. “I think there are people we’re gonna wanna do that stuff with. Just not the girls we’ve dated so far. But they’re out there… is what’m sayin’.” His teeth crunched on the candy.

Link chewed his lip as he contemplated the handful of bad cards in front of him. “You think somethin’s gonna feel as good as it looks in the movies… if we find the right person?”

Rhett nodded. “Why would they make it look like that if it didn’t happen that way? We just gotta keep tryin’… different people.” 

Link looked up as Rhett’s eyes darted away, and he could’ve sworn the boy had been looking at his lips. He felt a blush creep up his fair cheeks as he took the opportunity to observe Rhett’s own small, pink mouth. He thought of the way his skin fluttered into goosebumps whenever it came into contact with Rhett’s. “ _They’re out there,”_ Rhett had said. And he hadn’t said “girls” or “women” but “people.” _What if...._

He wondered if Rhett had deliberately given him an opening to say something and was waiting for his response. The silence dragged on as Link’s mind raced and he resisted the urge to twist the cards in his hands. He had just opened his mouth, not knowing what was going to come out, when Rhett scoffed and tossed down his cards. “I fold. I got crap for cards. And I’m hungry.” He reached out and scooped up the pile of candy in front of Link and poured it all into his mouth.

“Hey!” Link yelped in mock outrage. “My winnings!” 

“You don’ even lih ski’lls!” Rhett mumbled around the huge mouthful of sugar. 

“That’s not the point!” Link grabbed for the candy in front of Rhett and popped a more modest handful into his own mouth. The tangy, slightly sour artificial fruit flavor coated his tongue. 

“But those are _my_ winnings!” Rhett protested. As usual, the manufactured conflict between them quickly devolved into a wrestling match, scattering cards and candy across the shag carpet and filling the room with giggles. It wasn’t long before Rhett had gained the upper hand and flopped on top of Link, pinning the smaller boy to the floor face-down. 

Link was still trying to chew, having held the mass of sticky sugar in his mouth during the fight for fear of choking, and now he couldn’t breathe from laughter and the weight of Rhett’s chest on his back. “Brute,” he huffed.

“Dork.” Rhett rumpled his hair as Link flailed his arms, trying in vain to reach something vulnerable on the other boy. 

Link finally swallowed the bolus of sweets. “You’re such an ogre,” he declared. He bucked his hips in an attempt to throw the other boy off, but was no match for Rhett’s dead weight.

“Yeah, but I got you good!” Rhett sprawled over him and let out an exaggerated sigh, as if he’d be happy to lie there all night. His warm breath stirred the curls at the nape of Link’s neck and his arms spread out atop Link’s own, completely covering him in maximum body contact. If Link weren’t worried about his lungs being able to expand, the situation wasn’t that objectionable. In fact, he felt quite… butterfly-ish. 

The realization sent a jolt through his heart. They’d always been affectionate with each other, sure, but he hadn’t thought it _meant_ anything. He didn’t know if Rhett thought of him in _that_ way, in the butterfly way. For his part, he’d never really allowed himself to consider it in detail — not consciously — before now. Now… he was thinking about Rhett’s front pressed against his backside in quite a lot of detail. 

He realized it probably wasn’t a good idea to acknowledge the issue while Rhett was lying all over him, just in case there were any misunderstandings. So instead Link swallowed again and said, “Uh… hey man, I gotta pee.” 

“Oh!” Rhett clambered off of him in a hurry. “Sorry.”

“S’okay.” Link got up and went to the bathroom and splashed his face with cold water until the butterflies went away, then flushed the toilet and emerged. When he got back to the room, Rhett was sitting on his bed sorting through the deck of cards and looked up at him with a smile.

“Wanna go bike for pizza?” the boy asked brightly.

Link grinned. “Definitely.”

***

_May 1993_

The issue of girls — or people who might prove more compelling than girls — was put on hold by a discovery in one of their abandoned shacks in the woods. Inside a cabinet under a mildew-covered sink, behind a rusted loop of pipe that hadn’t seen water in twenty years, was a stack of magazines entitled “Witchcraft and the Occult.” The top one was nearly destroyed by mold, but it had shielded the five underneath it and Rhett extracted them with a shout of excitement.

Their covers, dated in the early 1970’s, displayed naked women in dim lighting with strategically placed candelabras, swords, and snakes. The periodicals’ insides contained similar creatively staged photos as well as eyewitness accounts of occult experiences, instructions for rituals, order forms for various magical accessories, and advertisements for adult videos. All the tawdry nudity made Link distinctly uncomfortable, especially once he realized these women were all now old enough to be his mother. 

“We should put ‘em back,” he whispered, as if the two-dimensional women might be able to hear him. “Or burn ‘em.”

Rhett paused in his eager flipping of pages to stare incredulously at his friend. “Whaaat? No way, man! Dontcha wanna learn about this stuff?”

Link looked down to where a blonde woman in a chainmail bikini appeared to be drinking blood from a goblet. Her fingernails were long and red. “Not really. It’s obviously not real, right?”

Rhett’s stormy green eyes were wide with fascination as he gave a slow shrug. “I mean… prooobably not.” He didn’t sound so sure.

“Well, if it is real, then it’s dangerous!” Link’s voice cracked. “You could get hurt!”

“Buddy, I’m not gonna do any of it, I promise.” Rhett squeezed his shoulder. “I just wanna learn about it.”

Link took a steadying breath and swiped the back of his hand across his nose. “Okay. If it’s just for learnin’, then… then I guess it’s okay.”

“Sweet!” Rhett put the magazines into his backpack and zipped it up. He turned and saw Link looking up at him with his lips still twisted in doubt, and gave the smaller boy a nudge with his elbow. “Don’t worry, brother. I’ll be careful.”

***

Rhett mentioned the magazines a few times over the following weeks, sharing tidbits of information he’d gleaned about psychic phenomena, astrology, and mystic shrines in “the Orient.” Link humored him; the topic didn’t interest him but he always enjoyed watching Rhett talk about his obsessions. He loved the way the boy’s face lit up with enthusiasm and his tendency to grab Link’s arm and squeeze to emphasize the most important points. He figured once Rhett had read each magazine cover to cover a few times and the novelty had worn off, he’d move on to something else.

Instead, to his dismay, Rhett began to talk about wanting to perform one of the rituals from the March 1972 issue. Moreover, he needed Link to do it with him.

“What is it?” Link asked warily. They were sitting on their favorite rocks at the bank of the river on a lazy June afternoon.

“It’s called Blood Binding.” 

“I hate the sound of it already.”

“Just hear me out, okay?” Rhett pleaded. “It’s really cool.”

Link rolled his eyes but gestured for the boy to continue.

“You know that story we read last year, about the blood brothers?” Link nodded. They’d read a short story in English class about two American Indian boys who had vowed to protect each other by cutting their hands and mingling their blood. Rhett had been fascinated at the time, but Link had tried not to think about it. Since as far back as he could remember, he’d always felt queasy at the sight of blood, especially his own. 

“It’s like that,” Rhett explained, “but with some magic words and stuff thrown in. Pretty simple but it’s supposed to be powerful.”

“Powerful for what? What does it do?”

Rhett looked over at him with a serious expression. “I want us to make a promise to each other that we’re gonna stick together, no matter what. For our whole lives.”

Link’s heart quickened. He’d never really considered the possibility that Rhett would leave his life, but now that he had, the prospect terrified him. “I thought we were gonna do that anyway.”

“Yeah, sure, but… don’t you think it’d be cooler to make a vow? If we cast this spell then neither of us can back out.”

“I thought this stuff was all make-believe.”

“It probably is. But what if it’s not?”

Link thought about it. He liked the idea that Rhett wanted to promise himself to him, but this occult stuff gave him the heebie jeebies. “Can’t we do it without bleedin’?”

“Nuh uh. It’s not powerful enough if it’s just words.”

“Words are pretty powerful,” Link grumbled. 

“C’mon, man. Just a little cut. Like you cut yourself shaving.”

“Psh. You know I don’t shave.”

“It’ll be tiny.” Rhett held up his thumb and forefinger an inch apart.

“Like your brain?”

Rhett stuck out his tongue and Link mirrored him. 

“I’ll think about it,” Link said, and hoped that would be the end of it. 

Instead Rhett kept asking, every time they got together, whether Link would do the blood binding ritual with him. He countered every argument Link raised with some variation of “But it would be so cool!” until the boy’s excitement finally wore him down. He begrudgingly agreed they’d perform the ritual the next time Link came over. 

One sunny afternoon in July, they took their bicycles to the cow pasture behind the golf course. It was a relatively private place despite being out in the open; they had never seen anyone except the cows in all the times they’d visited. Rhett carried his backpack, stuffed with supplies, to their favorite large oak tree. He spread a picnic blanket at its base and laid out the rest of what he needed: a fat white pillar candle, a lighter, a 2-liter soda bottle of water with what looked like a layer of dirt at the bottom (“From the river,” Rhett explained), a large metal mixing bowl, a pewter plate, and a small black-handled paring knife Link remembered seeing as part of a set in the McLaughlins’ kitchen. There was also a box of bandaids Rhett said were not technically part of the ritual but seemed like a good idea for afterward.

“I’m not gonna need stitches, am I?” Link let out a shaky laugh.

“No way. I’ll be careful, I promise.”

Rhett arranged the two of them sitting facing each other on the blanket, two sets of bony knees pointing at each other from oversized cargo shorts. They were both in white t-shirts, which Rhett had determined to be the closest thing to “white robes” they owned. Rhett placed the mixing bowl between them and the rest of the items within easy reach, with the candle on top of the plate. He opened the magazine to a dog-eared page and read through the procedure once more, then set it aside and looked at Link with eyes that gleamed with anticipation. “Ready?”

“No, but go ahead. I’ll just focus on not fainting.”

Rhett smiled. “You’re gonna do great, Link. I’m gonna purify the knife with water and fire, then we’re each gonna say our vows and cut each other, then clasp hands while we recite some Latin stuff. Just repeat after me for that part. Got it?” 

Link’s heart was racing already. He focused on Rhett’s face and the green-gold glow around it, watching the colors flare and dance in response to the boy’s excitement. It was beautiful, as always, and he felt somewhat calmer at the sight. He was determined not to screw this up. “Got it,” he declared. 

Rhett’s features settled into seriousness as he glanced once more at the magazine. He cleared his throat and sat up straighter, then flicked the lighter into life. He lit the candle as he intoned in a deep voice, “ _Ri_ _tuali incipiat_.” He unscrewed the cap on the bottle and held the knife between them, then poured a small amount of water over it. It made a tinny sound as it trickled into the bowl and the wet blade sparkled in the sunlight. 

He capped the bottle and set it aside, then picked up the candle and held it under the blade. The remaining water burned off and red-yellow petals bloomed across the metal, fading into smudges of black soot as they cooled. Once he’d passed the entire blade through the flame on both sides, he placed the candle back on the plate and held the knife handle out toward Link. 

They’d decided in advance that Link would cut Rhett’s hand first, in case he felt queasy after receiving his own cut. Now he realized the prospect of cutting someone else _also_ made him queasy. He’d never intentionally hurt another person in his life. 

When he reached out and accepted the knife, he felt a subtle thrum of electricity in the handle that made his fingers tingle. He looked down and saw that it seemed to have its own aura of white and red—the first time he’d seen the magical colors on anything other than a person. They didn’t seem sinister, but they didn’t seen entirely friendly either. 

Rhett held his hand over the bowl, palm up, and Link took it in his own. Rhett’s hand was sweaty and warm and full of life. The two boys gazed into each other’s eyes as Rhett spoke.

“Link, you’re my best friend. I vow to stay best friends with you no matter what, and one day we’re gonna do something amazing together. I, Rhett James McLaughlin, am your blood brother.” He nodded to show he was done and gestured with his brow that Link should make the cut. 

Link carefully brought the blade to the line on Rhett’s palm that Rhett had pointed out to him before — the one that curved over the base of his thumb, called the life line. He held his breath as he drew the edge lightly across it, but nothing happened. “Harder,” Rhett whispered.

It took Link a few more tries before he was able to press hard enough to break the skin, which he recognized by Rhett’s quick intake of breath. They both watched as the inch-long cut, little more than a scratch, began to bead with small ruby droplets. Link felt his stomach twist and his lips prickle with the numbness of lightheadedness. He took a few quick breaths before offering the knife to the other boy. He saw that his hand was trembling. 

Rhett took the blade gingerly in his wounded hand, trying not to disturb the cut. He cradled Link’s hand in his other one and gave Link an encouraging smile. Rhett’s eyes were dilated in his pale face and his aura pulsed with his heartbeat. Link closed his eyes and took more steadying breaths until the queasiness receded. _No turning back now_ , he thought to himself, and opened his eyes.

“Um, Rhett… you’re my best friend.” Link’s voice was tremulous at first, but it gained strength as he went on. “I vow to stay best friends with you forever, no matter what happens, and we’re gonna do something awesome together.” He swallowed. “I, Carolus Lincalian Neal, am your blood brother.” 

Rhett brought the blade to Link’s own life line and pressed down as he slowly drew it along. Link felt the same electrical tingle at first contact, and then a sting as the metal broke his skin. He held his breath as the blood seeped from the shallow wound and felt the world sway gently around him. Rhett set the knife down and reached out for Link’s wounded hand with his own. 

They clasped their hands at chest-height above the bowl, palms together and fingers intertwined. Link felt a slippery wetness between them as the blood smeared and mingled, and he let out a soft moan at the surprisingly intimate sensation. Rhett seemed similarly affected, breathing quickly through parted lips as his fingers tightened around Link’s own. For a long moment neither of them moved, then Rhett glanced down to the magazine and back up before beginning to chant in memorized Latin, pausing after every line for Link to repeat after him. 

“ _Sanguinem nostrum unum erimus,  
in manus tuas commendo spiritum meum._ ”

As Link repeated the words, the world began to withdraw from all sides. First the smell of the pasture disappeared, then the sounds of birds in the trees, then the warmth of the sunlight on his skin. His vision narrowed to their clasped hands and Rhett’s face beyond it, staring into his eyes with an intensity — a love? — greater than anything Link had seen before. He felt their matched heartbeats pounding in their hands, shaking his entire arm, sending a tremor through his chest. 

“ _Fratres consortes sanguinem cor unum,  
iam nos coniunxit in aeternum._ ”

As Link repeated the last word, Rhett’s aura flared brighter than the sun and Link reflexively shut his eyes. When he opened them again, he was no longer sitting under the tree. He was floating alone in a white void that swirled with ribbons of green and gold and red. One by one, visions came to him, disjointed and confusing, flashing for only a second or two before they were gone:

_A black crayon skips and stutters over construction paper._  
_He lies on a thin mattress on the floor atop a shag carpet. Stars glow above him._  
_Skin brushes against his skin, eyelashes flutter next to his cheek and warm breath stirs his hair._  
_Iron sears the skin of his back. It tears through his delicate flesh like paper. He screams._  
_The river flows past him, water splashes. He hears laughter and feels the sun-baked surface of the rocks._  
_Glass shatters. Blood drips on the dashboard of a pickup truck._  
_He runs his hands over the cold metal frame of a bunk bed and onto the dimpled surface of cinderblock walls._  
_Arms wrap around him and hold him tightly as wind howls just outside._  
_His palms sweat as a crowd cheers his name. Someone squeezes his shoulder and his nervousness recedes._  
_He is wailing with grief, his throat raw, tears blinding him, choking him._  
_He sings, his voice winding in ecstatic harmony around a stronger, deeper voice._  
_A mouth warms the side of his neck, runs up under his ear, whispers love and lust and devotion._  
_Blood seeps through his fingers, hot and thick, and there is too much of it.  Too much._  
_His hands caress the smooth surface of a wooden desk. He leans over a microphone._  
_He shivers._  
_A pair of ice-blue, almond-shaped eyes turn to him, and he is transfixed like a lamb before a lion._  
_He is running, hiding, but they see him wherever he goes._

Link blinked and opened his eyes and he was back on the picnic blanket at the foot of the tree, clasping hands with Rhett over the metal bowl. The smells and sounds and sunlight of the real world had returned. The other boy was looking at him with concern and Link realized that, for Rhett, barely any time had passed. “You all right?” The blond boy whispered.

Link forced a smile. “Yeah.”

Rhett carefully untwined their fingers and let go of Link’s hand. The bleeding had stopped and what was smeared over their palms had grown sticky. Rhett picked up the candle with his uninjured hand and blew it out, then intoned, “ _Rituali completum.”_

There was a gust of wind that seemed to originate in between them and blow outwards, ruffling Link’s hair and the sleeves of their t-shirts. Rhett seemed oblivious to it as he closed the magazine. He rinsed their hands with the water that was left in the bottle, dried them, and applied the bandaids. Link went along with it as if in a daze, letting Rhett move his hand around like a doll as he tried to understand — or even remember — everything he had seen. 

“You okay?” Rhett gave his shoulder a gentle shake, leaving his hand there as he searched the smaller boy’s face.

Link dipped his head in a nod that brushed his jaw lightly against Rhett’s warm fingers. “Yeah, that was just… a little intense.”

Rhett turned his hand over and cupped Link’s cheek, and Link felt the bandaid against his skin. It was an unusually tender gesture, but it didn’t seem out of place after what they’d just experienced. “Very intense,” Rhett agreed softly. 

He stared into Rhett’s eyes, drawn to the dilated pupils inside rings of aquamarine. He brought up his own bandaged palm to touch the soft hair along the other boy’s jawline and watched Rhett blink slowly at the contact before staring at him anew. Above them in the tree, starlings trilled and chirped at one another. 

Rhett licked his lips and swallowed. He took a breath that seemed to catch in his throat. His fingertips traced along Link’s jaw as he removed his hand, dropping his eyes at the same time. Link reluctantly let his own hand fall back to his lap and looked down at it, not sure what to make of the sudden awkwardness. 

Fortunately he was rescued by Rhett’s serious demeanor departing as quickly as it had come. The boy flashed Link a triumphant grin. “It was awesome, though, right?”

Link chuckled. “It sure was!”

Rhett moved the bowl to the side and leaned forward to enfold Link in a tight hug. “We’re brothers now,” he told him with lips pressed into Link’s glossy hair.

Link wrapped his arms around Rhett’s waist and closed his eyes, resting his cheek against the boy’s bony chest. He smelled earth and blood and fresh-flowing water. “We are. I’m so happy.” 

Rhett released him and sat back. “Now I want some pizza.”

“Whatever you say, brother.” 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains supernaturally-caused dubious consent, brief mention of homophobia, vandalism, graphic description of severe injury and blood, peril, and mild suicidal ideation.

Rhett soon abandoned his fascination with magic and moved on to model airplanes, but their friendship seemed to gain a new dimension as a result of the blood ceremony. Even though they had been devoted to each other before, now it felt to Link like there was an additional force connecting them even while the cut on his palm healed to a faint pink line. 

There were times he thought he could sense what Rhett was feeling when the two of them were apart. One day he was sitting alone in study hall and felt a sudden spike of anxiety, only to learn at lunch time that Rhett had been surprised with a pop quiz in his class at that moment. A week later he was having dinner with his mother and began to feel angry and frightened… and then the phone rang. It was Rhett calling to tell him about a huge fight he’d just had with his father. 

When he mentioned this to Rhett, the other boy was confused and envious. He actually leaned over and sniffed the air a few inches from Link’s head, as if trying to catch a whiff of pure emotion. “I’m not sensin’ anything off ya,” he sat back with a shake of his head. “That don’t seem fair.” 

“I’m not readin’ your mind or anything,” Link hastened to reassure him. “Just a little inkling here and there. Mostly feels like I’m going a bit nuts, feelin’ stuff that’s not mine.”

“Well, I hope you don’t feel anything too embarrassin’,” Rhett grumbled, giving his shoulder a playful shove. His cheeks had turned pink.

Link returned the shove, though it was much harder to shift the taller boy’s torso. “Hey, that whole ritual was your idea, remember?”

Rhett worried about his emotional privacy for a little while after that, but when Link didn’t bring it up again, he seemed to forget about it. Link didn’t want the guy to be self-conscious about stuff he couldn’t help, or worse yet try to distance himself as a result, so he tried to ignore the feelings that intruded on him from the outside every now and then.

However, there was one emotion that proved much harder to ignore. 

Sometimes when he and Rhett were hanging out alone, on the riverbank or in the cow pasture or on the swingset in Rhett’s back yard, there would be a pause in the conversation while both boys simply sat and enjoyed each other’s company... and Link would find himself suddenly flushed with the tingling heat of desire. He would turn and see Rhett looking at him with an inscrutable expression before the boy licked his lips and looked away. It was never long before Rhett resumed the conversation and the waves of lust receded, making Link question if they’d been there at all. But after the third time it happened, he had to admit it to himself: Rhett was attracted to him, at least sometimes. Rhett wanted him. 

And the more he thought about it — the more he recalled the way his skin warmed to his best friend’s touch, the way he was always happiest when he was around Rhett, the way he couldn’t imagine ever being apart from him — the more he realized that his own desires had evolved in a decidedly romantic direction. The feeling of an intimate connection had always been there since they met in first grade, but puberty was pushing him to look at Rhett in a new light. Now he admired the boy’s strong jaw and elegant brow, the lean muscles that flexed in his arms and legs on the basketball court and when he swam beside Link in the river. He loved the way Rhett’s gentleness and grace contrasted with his size. 

He tried to imagine what it might be like to share a new level of intimacy with his best friend, and the idea was very appealing. He was in a difficult spot, though. Rhett trusted him not to invade his thoughts. If he wanted Link to know how he felt, wouldn’t he say something? Maybe he was fighting those feelings. Maybe he didn’t want to have them; maybe he thought they were disgusting and wrong, like some of their church leaders said. If that were the case, Link asking him about it would be the worst thing he could do. 

Link resolved to wait, for now, and do his best to not react when he felt the heat of his best friend’s ardor suddenly coursing through his own body.

***

One night a month after the oath, as the summer before their junior year wound to a close, Link was lying in bed after a long day with Rhett at the river. It had been one of the best times they’d had in recent memory, filled with carefree conversations about everything under the sun. Sitting together on the warm rocks in soaking wet shorts and no shirts, Link found himself sneaking glances at Rhett’s tanned and slimly muscled torso whenever he could. When he looked away, he clearly felt Rhett’s eyes on his own body.  

Link still felt the memory of that gaze on his skin now that he was alone in his room, sprawled contentedly across the mattress with his tired limbs stretched in all directions. It was still warm enough that he lay on his back in only his white cotton briefs, exposed to the breeze from the open window. He was just drifting off to sleep when he felt the barest whisper of a caress across his stomach. He first thought that it was the wind, but then the sensation returned again, stronger. It felt like warm fingers trailing along his body, roving from the point of his hip up along his ribs. 

He instinctively flicked his hand over the spot as if to brush away an insect. His eyes fluttered open and he looked down at his pale skin in the grey-blue darkness of his bedroom. As he lay there, confused, he felt a warm sensation run along his collarbone that felt nothing like an insect and much more like a person’s mouth. He let out a soft noise as his body responded, arching his back up into the pleasant phantom touch. He saw a flash of green and a shimmer of gold.

Heat bloomed in his abdomen and his sleep-dulled mind finally recognized the sensation of his best friend’s arousal. “Oh… oh no, no…” he whispered in dawning understanding as he rubbed his own hands over his chest, trying to scrub away the ghostly caresses. _Is he thinking about me right now? Fantasizing about what he wants to do? To me?_ He swallowed hard past the sudden lump in his throat.

He felt Rhett’s mouth on his neck, kissing and pulling at his skin. He rolled over and pressed his face into the pillow to stifle a moan as the spectral hands ran over his sides and down his hips. He had the wild idea of calling Rhett and telling him to stop — that this wasn’t the private alone-time experience the other boy thought it was — but before he could convince his legs to get up out of bed, they went weak. The warm sensations had made their way to his groin.

He twitched as his body responded, his own lust rising up to meet what he was sensing from Rhett. His mind filled with images of his own body as if he were outside of it, but an idealized version – Rhett’s fantasy. He saw chiseled muscles and a taut stomach, his own narrow waist tapering down to… _oh gosh._ Link’s face burned with intense embarrassment as Rhett’s imagination of his manhood filled his vision. He barely had time to process it before invisible hands — Rhett’s hands — took hold of it with a determined caress. “Ohhh goodness,” he breathed, scrunching his eyes shut. 

His consciousness was a confusing maelstrom of his actual body and Rhett’s imagination of it, coupled with the sensations he was receiving of what Rhett was presumably doing in _his_ reality, taking matters into his own hands on the other side of town. Link stayed face down and gasped into the pillow as his hips rolled and curled, pushing his groin into the mattress in an instinctual pleasure response. His lust quickly spiraled higher and higher, helplessly carried along in the waves of another’s passion. It seemed Rhett was wasting no time pursing his release.

It was unlike anything he’d ever experienced, and yet it also felt intimately familiar. In a way, it was just himself alone in his room, getting overly friendly with his mattress like countless times before. But now he was not entirely alone. If it didn’t feel so good, he’d be worried he was losing his mind. Instead his body’s primal need prevented him from having such concerns. He couldn’t help but revel in Rhett’s thoughts of kissing him and touching him like this, rutting against his body, shamelessly giving in to his desires. It wasn’t long before he crested the edge of bliss and fell into orgasm with a gasp and a muffled moan. The knowledge that his best friend was doing the same a few miles away prolonged and heightened his pleasure.  

When muscle control returned to him he rolled over to his back and stared up at the ceiling, breathing hard, sweat and stickiness adding to the messy feeling of having just eavesdropped on his friend’s most personal of moments. And yet, the tingling afterglow throughout his exhausted muscles made it clear: he couldn’t deny how good it felt to know that Rhett was thinking about him in that way. He drifted to sleep with an enormous, satisfied grin underneath his tousled hair.

When the two boys met up the next day for more lazy conversations at the river, Rhett was in such a good mood that he didn’t even notice Link’s blush.

***

It was an intense experience, but it had also been intensely private, and therefore Link kept it locked deep within himself. Even as it happened again a few weeks later, and again after that, he let himself enjoy it in the moment and then immediately lock it away as something not to be consciously explored. In that way, he tiptoed through the minefield of their mutual desires as the weeks turned into months and the months into years. 

At first it was nearly impossible not to blurt out his own feelings, but anxiety proved to be a great motivator. He’d already waited too long to admit what he knew; the more time passed, the more he couldn’t imagine Rhett responding with anything but embarrassed anger if he learned Link was, effectively, spying on his most intimate thoughts.

It was easier, sometimes, because Rhett’s desire wasn’t constant. Rhett still dated girls on occasion, and during those times Link wouldn’t “feel” anything from him for months. It was then Link wondered if that was it, if Rhett no longer wanted him in that way, and he was both grateful and sad. However, it was never long after Rhett’s girlfriend dumped him that Link was visited, once again, by the whispered tendrils of his best friend’s dream-caresses at night.

Link continued to go through the motions of dating girls as well, but they soon realized his heart wasn’t in it and he didn’t mind when they let him go. It was hard enough to navigate the turbulent waters of the standard high school experience without the additional issues of his relationship with Rhett and the ways his body still wasn’t developing like his friends’. Most of the time he just tried to ignore it all and enjoy each day as it happened.

His efforts were helped by the fact that he and Rhett had managed to accumulate a decent bunch of friends over the years. Kids from Rhett’s basketball team and Link’s soccer team, classmates, and others they’d gotten to know in various ways all rounded out their social circle into a diverse and creative group. These friends provided an extra buffer between Link and those teenage boys who might still be tempted to bully him, and he felt himself attaining a level of new level of confidence.

Given that there wasn’t much to do in their small town, especially when the weather wasn’t conducive to exploring the woods or hanging out at the river, this group often entertained themselves by pulling pranks. It was usually harmless fun, like swapping lawn ornaments between two houses, hiding something rotten in a classroom cabinet, or using spray paint to make the Deer Crossing signs more anatomically correct. Link’s favorite part of these activities was seeing the wild, joyous gleam in Rhett’s eyes as they watched a successful prank come to fruition.

Link’s biggest contribution to the prank effort,personally, was the getaway car. The summer before senior year, Link had gotten his driver’s license and bought a pickup truck with money he’d saved from his summer jobs. The truck was already nearly ten years old at that point, but the price was right and it was perfect for the teenager’s lifestyle. Whenever he and Rhett wanted to drive around with the other kids in pursuit of mildly illicit activities, the others would simply pile into the bed of the truck and be on their way. 

This is how, on Halloween of their Junior year, Link found himself driving his truck down a quiet side street with Rhett beside him and eight other kids were crammed into the back. They’d all met up at their friend Chris Gardner’s house to determine what they, as teenagers too old to trick-or-treat, could do to entertain themselves that night. Another of their friends, Jason, had proposed egging houses, and after much discussion it had been deemed an acceptable plan. 

With their teenage sense of honor, they had determined that only rich houses deserved to be egged, which was why they were driving all the way to the Neills Creek Farm subdivision in the nearby town of Angier. Link started to get nervous on the way there as the initial excitement wore off, and he wrung his sweaty palms on the steering wheel. “We sure about this?” he muttered.

Rhett reached his long arm across the cab and slapped his palm onto Link’s thigh, squeezing his fingers around the muscle before letting go. “It’s gonna be great, Link! Just think in the morning when the sun comes up on those fancy houses and there’s egg drippin’ all over the place. They won’t even know what hit ‘em!”

“Well, they’ll probably guess it was eggs…” Link turned to see Rhett’s grin and couldn’t help but return the expression. 

Rhett latched onto his shoulder and gave it an exuberant jostle. “It’s so cool that you get to drive us for this,” The blond teen crowed. “My man Link, the guy with the wheels, you’re basically the coolest dude in the school now.” 

“I’m glad you’re finally recognizing that.” Link turned back to the road with a faint blush on his cheeks as the other boy walked his fingers up the ridge of shoulder and up under his hair. He squirmed and giggled as Rhett tickled the back of his neck, struggling to keep his eyes on the road. Rhett was single now, and Link didn’t need the visions of the past few nights to know his friend was feeling frisky. Link turned his head and snapped his teeth as if to nip at Rhett’s arm, and the other boy chuckled and pulled away. 

They turned off the main street and onto the neighborhood road. “Cut the headlights,” Rhett ordered in a tense voice.

“What?” Link didn’t like the sound of that at all. It had been raining earlier that night and now there was a fog clinging to the ground. Coupled with the lack of streetlights, he could barely see even _with_ his headlights on. 

“Turn ‘em off!” The other boy barked, his giddy mood gone now that they were getting down to business.

Link complied and plunged them into darkness as the truck rolled to a stop in front of the first house. They hadn’t discussed this part of the plan, but Rhett seemed to know exactly what to do. “You stay here with the engine running and we’ll go do it and come back.”

“Okay.” He wasn’t disappointed to miss the actual egging. This plan seemed like a good way to get credit for the prank without as much risk. He watched as Rhett got out and left the door open, then felt the truck shift as the other kids climbed out of the bed. The target house’s driveway was long and somewhat winding; Link could barely make out the shape of the two-story structure from where they were parked.

He held his breath as he waited, listening for shouts of homeowners or approaching police sirens, but all was quiet. It wasn’t long before Rhett re-emerged from the darkness and dove back into the passenger seat with a huge smile. “That was awesome!” he reported in a triumphant whisper. “We got a few of the front windows and all over the garage door!”

The boy’s excitement was contagious, especially when Link saw how it made his aura flicker and dance, its golden glow illuminating the car with a light only Link could perceive. “Let’s get the next one then!” he whispered back. He checked the rearview and saw Jason’s thumbs-up, meaning everyone else was safely back in the bed. He shifted the truck into drive and stomped the gas pedal, leaping them forward toward the next victim’s house.

They continued in the same manner for the dozen or so houses in the neighborhood, with Link’s adrenaline surging more each time he waited in the getaway truck. Rhett seemed to grow more and more jubilant with each house they tagged, hooting with glee and giving Link shoulder slaps and thigh squeezes every chance he got. 

The last house on the block was large and white, visible even in the misty darkness — the preacher’s house. Link watched the silhouettes of the teenagers as they advanced toward it, emptied the last of the egg cartons against its face, then came running back. When Rhett dove into the cab of the truck this time, his exuberant momentum carried him across the bench seat so his hip was pressed against Link’s as he caught himself on the opposite doorframe. He brought his arms down and hugged the smaller boy around the waist as he faced him with dilated eyes mere inches away.

“We got that one so good!” the blond whispered fiercely. “This is the best Halloween ever, brother!”

Link could only stare into the other boy’s mesmerizing gaze as Rhett’s spicy masculine scent filled his lungs. Rhett’s black t-shirt was damp with sweat and clung to his torso, which pressed into Link’s. Link watched Rhett’s eyes flick down and licked his lips in nervous response. For a split second he thought Rhett was going to lean forward and kiss him then and there, but instead the boy spun back to his seat and pointed forward like a Roman gladiator on a chariot. “Go go go! We gotta get outta here!”

Link saw Jason’s thumbs-up in the mirror and stomped the gas once more, sending them forward into their escape. He was truly the getaway driver now; every second that passed was another that could be bringing the police closer. He felt drunk on adrenaline and the faint taste of Rhett’s breath still lingering in the air in front of his face. The sense of Rhett’s arm around him tightened, even though the arm itself was no longer there. He realized the boy was looking at him across the cab with waves of desire radiating off of him. He became aware of a heat in his groin and couldn’t tell if it was coming from him or Rhett, and decided it didn’t even matter. _Maybe tonight’s the night we face this music…_

He was lost in that thought as they fled down the rain-slicked street, rushing far too fast into the grey mist that seemed thicker than when they’d gotten here, thicker even than when he’d stopped at the last house. He turned to glance at Rhett’s face, which gleamed with joy as he grinned back at Link, and for a brief moment everything was perfect.

He saw the red sheen of a stop sign reflect across Rhett’s cheek in a flash before they were past it, careening forward into the void past where the road split left and right in a T intersection. They’d reached the end of the road at forty miles per hour. His only instinct was to slam on the brakes and turn the wheel to try to take the turn, but the wet asphalt offered no purchase. The tires locked and skidded forward, ignoring all of his efforts to change or slow their trajectory. 

Ahead of them beyond the end of the road was a vast expanse of cornfield, its undulating rows freshly plowed and pillowy. His terror abated somewhat at the thought that they would simply roll into those thick mounds of earth and come to a gentle stop, crisis averted. Instead, the darkness had hidden one more trap for them, which revealed itself when the front of the truck suddenly plunged downward into a deep ditch. There was a loud _BAM!_ and Link felt his body slam into an invisible wall. He was momentarily weightless as the front end of the truck popped back up out of the ditch and flew into the air, then it settled into the mud on the other side and rolled slowly to a standstill. 

Silence. Link realized his eyes were clenched closed and there was blood in his mouth; he had bitten his tongue. His collarbone throbbed from where the seatbelt had caught it and his hands were in a painful death grip around the steering wheel. Moving on autopilot, he blinked his eyes open and shifted the truck into park.

The headlights were still off, but his eyes had gotten used to the darkness over the course of the evening and the moonlight showed him enough. The glass in front of him glittered with a spiderweb of cracks in front of his face. He followed them toward the passenger side where the cracks opened into a void; the entire right side of the windshield was gone. The dashboard looked strangely wet. 

As if in a dream, he turned his head further as a small part of his mind begged him not to. _If you don’t look it won’t be real…_

The passenger seat was empty. The unused seatbelt gleamed.

Link barely felt the pain in his collarbone as he flung the door open, shoving hard as the bent metal creaked through the silence. He wrenched his own seatbelt off and stumbled out, sinking up to his knees in the deeply ploughed earth. He floundered over to the front of the truck and peered out into the mist-shrouded darkness until he thought he made out a shape on the ground some twenty feet ahead. It seemed to take forever to make his way over to it as he tripped and fell and dragged himself upright and fell again.

Finally he collapsed to his knees next to Rhett. The boy lay crumpled on his side, one arm flung up above his head and the other by his side. His legs were similarly splayed and for a moment Link had a vision of a discarded action figure tossed onto a playroom floor. The position was not in any way natural. He reached out a trembling hand and touched his friend’s shoulder. “Rhett?”

There was no response.

“Rhett?” he said again, louder. His tongue felt thick and slow. “Rhett!” he shouted, pushing the boy’s shoulder.

With a strained groan, the other boy slowly rolled onto his back. He coughed as Link leaned over him and there was a spatter of hot wetness across Link’s cheek. It smelled like iron. Rhett seemed to be struggling to breathe and each inhalation sounded thick and bubbling.

“Oh my God, Rhett, oh my God, oh my God…” Link’s mind was blank with panic. Rhett moved to lift his head and Link guided it into his lap, trying to help the boy get comfortable. 

Rhett’s eyelids fluttered and opened, but his eyes stared blankly into the darkness. “Link?” he rasped, then panted for air. “Where…?”

“I’m here, I’m here…” he stroked Rhett’s forehead as the boy coughed again and spat, covering his own chin and neck with a thick sheen of blood. Rhett’s skin felt cold, too cold. Link raised his head and whipped it around, trying to see anything through the thick fog. Where was everyone else? Had they been thrown from the truck too? Why couldn’t he hear them? “Help!” he called. “Help us, please!”

Rhett was mumbling something that Link had to lean down close to his mouth to hear. “Sorry I… I got you in trouble… “

“No, Rhett, shhhh…” Link rocked forward and back in helpless panic as he choked on his tears. “It’s gonna be okay, I promise.”

Rhett raised a sticky hand and pressed it to Link’s cheek. “I’m sorry, brother…” The hand fell back down.

As Link continued to shout for help, he became aware of a cold ache in his lower chest. Unlike his own injuries, this pain felt like an echo or an afterimage. With a terrible sense of dread, he ran his hand down Rhett’s body to the matching place on the boy’s own chest. His fingers felt Rhett’s t-shirt soaked through with warm blood, then something thin and sharp. He blinked through his tears as he carefully pulled up the hem of the black t-shirt and stared down in horror at the jagged white shape that caught the moonlight. The world spun in a dizzying arc as he realized Rhett’s rib had snapped and gone through his skin. The boy was coughing blood because his lung was punctured and filling with it.

Link’s stomach lurched and his consciousness contracted to a pinpoint before he shook his head and forced the darkness away. _Rhett needs you now. Keep it together._ Trying not to jostle Rhett’s head in his lap, doing his best not to move the other boy at all, he took off his shirt and pressed it carefully over the wound. 

He couldn’t leave Rhett alone. “Help!” He cried out into the mist. “Please, we need help!” 

There was no response.

He screamed until his throat was raw and his voice gave out. The silence that surrounded them was so thick that the two of them might as well have been alone in the world. Rhett’s murmurs faded until they became inaudible, and then his lips ceased moving altogether. His breaths grew shallower and further apart as Link sobbed his name over and over. _It can’t end like this. It can’t._ He watched as the boy’s beautiful gold-green aura flickered and dimmed, and felt his own life dimming with it. How could he go on without Rhett? He bent down low over Rhett’s body and begged for death to take him too. “I’ll do anything,” he whispered. “Save him, let him live, and I’ll do anything.”

There was a noise from a few feet in front of him: a soft exhalation of air that was strangely loud in the preternatural stillness. He looked up and didn’t see anything for a moment. He blinked and rubbed his eyes with knuckles that were sticky with blood, and when he opened them again he perceived a tall, slender figure emerging from the mist.

A young man in a long grey coat stopped a few feet away and stared down at him with almond-shaped, ice-blue eyes. His ivory-blond hair hung past his shoulders and framed a pale, narrow face with high cheekbones and an imperious brow, upon which sat an intricate crown of thin silver wire. His shapely pink lips curled into a grin as he took in the scene on the ground, then he let out a soft chuckle that made Link shiver. 

“Well, well, well. What do we have here?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some events of this chapter are based heavily on [Good Morning Chia Lincoln #39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtNzvZIVxgU).


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: This chapter contains references to graphic injuries, a hospital scene, and a brief reference to major character death.

The questions that would have normally sprung to Link’s lips upon the appearance of a strangely dressed teenager in the middle of a cornfield — namely, _who are you and what are you doing here_ — were drowned by the more immediate issue of Rhett’s blood soaking through the fabric in his hands. So instead he cried out, “Help us! Call 911! I think he’s dying!”  

The young man stepped forward and the mist swirled and parted around his feet to reveal tall, wide-cuffed black leather riding boots. He peered down his aquiline nose to where Link cradled Rhett’s head in his lap. Something about his imperious gaze made Link’s shouts fade to a whisper. “Please…” 

“I can show you how to save him,” the man declared. 

“M— me? Save him?” Link tried to blink away the tears that stung his eyes. “But I don’t know anything… Please, his ribs are broken and he can’t breathe, I don’t know what to do!”

The boy smiled again. The pupils in his pale blue eyes were mere pinpoints despite the darkness. “It’s quite simple, really. I’ll help you make him as good as new.” Link realized his smooth tenor had the soft lilt of some accent from the British Isles.  “But I would ask one thing in return.” 

Link’s answer was immediate. “Anything! Money? I can pay you… I’ll give you everything I have…”

The stranger spread his hands, forestalling Link’s promises. “None of that is necessary. All I ask is that you give me welcome here.”

The calm tone of his voice despite the incredible urgency of the situation made Link’s head spin with confusion. “What?” he sputtered. “Welcome to where? What do you mean?”

The boy raised his long-fingered hands in a gesture that encompassed the field and sky. “Simply tell me that I am welcome here.”

It was crazy. What did etiquette matter in this crisis of life and death? Maybe the guy was seeking permission to help, like he wanted to cover his ass in case something went wrong and Link tried to sue him… “I don’t live here,” Link pointed out. “This isn’t my field, we were just… just passing through.” He choked down another sob. He spared a brief thought to wonder where all their friends were — shouldn’t they be out here too? _Are they all dead?_

“That matters not,” the boy assured him. “A simple welcome from you is all I require.”

Link didn’t have time to puzzle through the riddles. Maybe this guy was a few screws loose, but he still should have enough presence of mind to go get help if they got past this strange conversation. So Link shook his head and blurted out, “Okay! Yes, you’re welcome here! Just help him!”

The boy took a deep breath and held it with a smile, as if savoring the scent of the freshly ploughed earth. He exhaled and a gust of wind lashed Link’s hair across his forehead and fluttered the hem of the stranger’s coat; the fog swirled in silver eddies around them. “Ah, excellent. It is done. Now for my part of the bargain…” 

He dropped to one knee on the blood-soaked earth and reached out to cup Link’s face between his palms. Before the brunet could recoil from the cold touch, the boy’s icy gaze met his and transfixed him, removing all desire to move. His racing heart abruptly slowed and he felt entirely calm. The boy leaned forward until their noses were nearly touching and Link could taste his lavender-scented breath. He saw the boy’s mouth quirk in the same sly grin and, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the tip of a sharply pointed ear. 

Without warning, he plunged into a kaleidoscope of swirling colors. He was no longer aware of the stranger touching him, of the mud under his knees or the feeling of Rhett’s broken body in his arms. It was as if he were standing in the center of a tornado made up of every hue and shade in the world, including some he thought he’d never seen before. They streamed past him in bands of various widths, woven together in a complex cacophony of light. 

The sight was beautiful and terrifying and quickly became too much for him to bear. He started to feel like he was losing his sense of self. He couldn’t speak; couldn’t breathe. He began to glimpse shadows writhing within the maelstrom and they seemed to notice him at the same time. They turned toward him and his heart stumbled in fear.

Then he saw more familiar colors shining through the chaos: first an emerald green, then a pure gold, dancing around each other in an elegant pattern. They were his favorite colors in the whole world because they were Rhett’s. He focused on them and they became clearer. He realized he could move his arms and he reached out to them, and when he touched them they became a ribbon he could hold, a ribbon of both green and gold. 

Its ends stretched back into the rainbow, of seemingly infinite length no matter how much he pulled to himself, but when he looked down at the section between his hands he saw it was torn and frayed. In one place it was cut nearly in two; only a few threads kept the two sides from separating entirely. The damaged edges were blackened and curled like burned paper. 

He knew this was very wrong. He stared at the ribbon, holding it close to his face, and slowly understood what he needed to do. He took a deep breath, inhaling the chaos around him, and felt it gather warm and heavy within his chest. While he held it there, he sensed a change, as if the power were being refined or purified somehow inside his body. When he exhaled, his breath cast a shimmering glow over the gossamer material in his hands. Ever so slowly, the ribbon’s edges began to knit themselves back together. 

He did this again and again, pulling the power down into the depths of his soul and imbuing it with healing essence which he then forced up and out through his hands. Sometimes the ribbon would pull from him, trying to snap away into the darkness like a writhing serpent, but he gritted his teeth and clung to it. He felt himself growing more tired with each breath, but the ribbon grew brighter and the black edges faded. 

When it was finally whole again, he lifted it to his lips with shaking hands and kissed its silken gloss. Part of him wanted to stay in this place and hold onto it forever, keeping it safe, keeping it with him. But he knew that would not be right. He knew, somehow, that the shadows he saw earlier would find him again, because he didn’t belong here. He had to leave. With a soft twinge in his heart, he whispered, “I love you,” and let the ribbon slip out of his fingers to rejoin the maelstrom. When he saw that all was as it should be, he closed his eyes.

When he opened them, he was once again kneeling in the cold mud with Rhett’s head in his lap. The boy with the ice-blue eyes was gone. He peered down at his best friend’s pale and blood-spattered face as Rhett’s eyes slowly blinked open. “Link?” he rasped.

Link, however, was unable to respond. At the sound of Rhett’s voice, relief and exhaustion poured over him in a tidal wave, knocking his consciousness out from under him with one incredible blow. Whatever he had just done had drained him on a fundamental level, leaving him as weak as a newborn kitten. There was nothing left inside of him to even stay sitting upright. As Rhett stared up at him in wonder, Link’s eyes rolled back and his body tipped over backwards. The darkness and the mud rushed up in unison to meet him and he succumbed to their embrace without a sound. 

***

He awoke to soft beeping noises and an antiseptic smell. His head reeled with disorientation and a throbbing headache. He registered an unfamiliar mattress underneath his back and scratchy cotton sheets above, and the unusual sensation of a hand holding his own. His eyelids were heavy and it took him a while to pry them open enough to focus on his surroundings. 

He was in a hospital room partitioned off with a light blue curtain. There were a number of machines with shifting numbers and slowly flashing lights, and Rhett was sitting on a chair by his side, clutching his hand and staring at his face. 

“Link?”

“Rhett!” Link moved to sit up, but the other boy laid his free hand gently on his chest.

“Careful. Not too much yet.”

Memories slowly emerged from the fog that filled his brain: speeding through the neighborhood without his headlights on, losing control of the truck, Rhett’s horrific injuries… “You’re alive!” he gasped. 

“Yeah, I am.” Rhett grinned. “The docs are real confused by where all the blood came from. It was mine, they said, but they couldn’t find any injury.” He shrugged. “It must’ve been a heckofa nosebleed.”

Link’s head pounded. “Huh? But your ribs were all smashed up…”

The other boy ran his hands down own chest, which appeared flat and unbandaged. He shrugged. “Nope, nothing happened to ‘em. Seems like a miracle really — I didn’t even get cut up goin’ through the windshield.” He frowned. “I don’t remember anything after we tagged the preacher’s house until I got here with you, though.”

Link’s mind filled with images of Rhett’s bruised face, his shattered chest, the way his breath had bubbled and strained. His stomach lurched with remembered panic. “You were…” he tried to shake the cobwebs from his head, and winced when his headache flared. “You were dying,” he whispered.

“Nah, man, I’m fine. God must’ve been lookin’ after me.” Rhett squeezed Link’s forearm, then left his hand resting there. “You’re the one who got the worst of it. The paramedics couldn’t wake you up. No one’s been able to figure out what’s wrong with you but they think you must’ve hit your head.”

Now that his initial shock was fading, Link became aware of Rhett’s red-rimmed eyes and his tremulous smile. The boy must have been worried sick about him. Link reached over and put his hand on top of Rhett’s. “I think I’m okay now. Just a headache. I’m glad you’re here.” 

Rhett sniffled and swiped his forearm across his nose as he nodded. They stared at each other, grinning, until they heard the door swing open. Both of them turned to see Link’s mother entering, and she gasped when she saw Link’s eyes were open. She rushed over to gather him into a careful hug as Rhett let go of Link’s hand and shifted away from the bed. “My poor baby!” she cried into his hair. “Thank goodness you’re awake! I was so worried.” 

Link brought his arms around her and returned the hug. “I’m fine, Mom, I’m sorry.” 

She leaned back and grasped him by the shoulders, looking him up and down, smoothing his hair back from his forehead. “You feel all right?” 

“Except for this headache, yeah.”

She frowned in sympathy and continued to stroke his hair as she sat down on the bed beside him. Her gentle touch dampened the pain and allowed him to think more clearly. He was still having a hard time remembering what happened after the accident, but the details of what led up to it were coming back to him. “Oh!” his eyes darted between the two of them. “What happened to the other kids? Is everyone else okay?” 

“They’re going to be fine,” Sue assured him. “A few bumps and bruises from when they got thrown from the truck, and Don needed stitches ‘cause he hit his head on the back window. But you’re the only one still in the hospital, honey.”

Link nodded, then gulped. He looked at Rhett. “Are we… in trouble?”

Rhett dropped his head between his shoulders in a shamefaced nod. When Link turned back to his mom, her expression was stern. “You bet your britches you’re in trouble, young man. The police are waitin’ to talk to you as soon as you’re up and about. You got property damage, vandalism… you just thank your lucky stars no one was seriously hurt. What on Earth were you thinking?” 

As he fumbled for a response, he saw Rhett stand up behind his mom and slink from the room with an apologetic smile. Link didn’t blame him; the boy’s dad had probably already tore into him something fierce. Link was pretty sure he’d be able to trade on his mother’s relief that he was okay in order to dodge the worst of her wrath, but it’d be a delicate conversation. He took a deep breath and began to try to explain himself.

***

Once Sue’s brief interrogation was over, Link was thoroughly evaluated by the doctors. They remained mystified as to what had made him unresponsive for nearly a day. He had no evidence of a concussion or any other injuries, though his blood did show elevated lactic acid, as if he’d been through an intense workout. During the examination he was worried they’d ask about his ears, but none of them seemed to give them a second look, and he realized they probably assumed it was some kind of “punk” thing. They released him to the police with a shrug.

His headache faded over the next few days while all the teens’ parents negotiated with the local court. They ended up pleading guilty to various charges of vandalism and trespassing and were sentenced to pay for the damage. They also had to perform 100 hours of community service, which they worked off over the course of the next few months with yard work and trash cleanup on town property. 

Even though it was supposed to be punishment, Link didn’t mind it so much because he had good company… it was inevitable that he and Rhett would work alongside each other, raking leaves and hauling brush in the cooling temperatures of November. Since they were both grounded from doing anything fun for two months, it was the only time they could see each other outside of school.

They worked most weekends that semester under the watchful eye of the Public Works Department, and had finished half their sentence when they were given a break during the coldest months. Link spent a good chunk of his meager savings getting the busted axel of his truck repaired, even though Rhett insisted on paying for half. Link had worried the other teens would blame him for the accident — he certainly blamed himself — but instead everyone seemed to feel a sense of bonding over it. They’d been through an ordeal together and the worst that had happened were some stitches and a single entry on their juvenile records, soon to be wiped if they behaved themselves from now on.

Link’s memory of the accident remained hazy, but he had nightmares that left him in a cold sweat: sometimes he was driving in the dark with Rhett beside him, until his best friend suddenly disappeared. Or he was holding Rhett in his arms in the cornfield as blood soaked the ground in an impossible quantity. The worst dreams were the ones where he had to leave Rhett’s lifeless body and walk through the fog to the McLaughlin’s house in order to tell them what he’d done. Rhett’s mother’s screams echoed though his head long after he awoke.

He didn’t tell Rhett about these nightmares. He sensed that the other boy was eager to move on from the accident, both for his own conscience and because he wanted his parents to trust him once again. He especially didn’t like to think about Link’s mysterious hospital stay, and Link was fine with that. Link preferred to focus on happier things, too, like how Rhett would sit close enough that their hips touched when they took a break from yardwork, or the warmth that lingered on the glass lip of the Clearly Canadian bottle they passed back and forth. 

Once the shock of the accident had worn off, the occasional night-time visits from Rhett’s fantasies resumed, and Link’s guilty enjoyment with them. His determination to tell Rhett how he felt grew with each passing day. He just needed to wait until they had some privacy and were both in a good mood, and then he could finally blurt out what leapt to the tip of his tongue whenever he felt the vibrations of desire coming from his best friend. _I want you too,_ and _Let’s do something about that._

But when they returned to school in January the first day after the Christmas break, with Link wondering if that day was going to be the day he confessed everything, Rhett looked exhausted and pale in his oversized burgundy sweatshirt. He entered their homeroom class and gave Link a short hug of greeting before slumping into his chair and rubbing his temples with his fingertips.

“Rough night?” Link asked.

Rhett glanced up with bloodshot eyes. “A few in a row. Haven’t been sleepin’ much. Nightmares.”

“Oh…” Link chewed his lip. He thought he had sensed his friend’s distress as he lay tossing and turning the night before, but sometimes he wasn’t sure whose emotions he was feeling, and they could’ve easily been his own. 

“Yeah, seems like they’re about the accident… but they’re real weird.” Rhett scratched at the point of his chinstrap beard. “Like, I’m chucking eggs at a house with the other kids and everything’s awesome, and then we’re driving along in the dark and I realize you’re going too fast, then…” 

He trailed off with his brow furrowed and Link’s stomach started to churn. “Then what?” Link asked.

“Then everything hurts… a _lot_ … and I can’t breathe, can’t see anything, it’s all black. I’m choking on blood. But I see your face and it’s like, your hands are inside my chest, holding stuff together that’s tryin’ to come apart. Ribs and guts and stuff. And I’m just screaming for you to stop because it hurts so freakin’ bad. And that’s what wakes me up.”

“Wow.” Link stared at the white desktop in front of him while Rhett’s words teased apart the cobwebs in his own memory. Visions started to emerge from the cracks, solidifying into a story that remained disjointed but was coming together. A strange silver-crowned boy cupping his face, colors swirling all around him, reaching out for Rhett’s green-gold ribbon and forcing it back to wholeness…

“Crazy, huh?”

Link’s head jerked up and he gave Rhett a forced smile. “Y… yeah, that’s nuts all right.”

Rhett’s weary eyes searched his. “It doesn’t make any sense, right? I mean, nothing like that happened… I went through the windshield and all but I was fine, right?”

“Rhett, I—“ He didn’t want to lie, but he didn’t know how to explain it either. He decided to buy himself some time and see if he could put the puzzle together himself, then figure out how to explain it all to Rhett in a way that didn’t get him locked in a padded cell. He shrugged and tried to look sincere. “I don’t really remember, man. It’s all a blur.”

The other boy regarded him with a raised brow, clearly suspicious. But before he could push Link for more, the bell rang to signal the end of homeroom. Link got up quickly and snatched up his backpack, then waited for Rhett to do so more slowly. The blond boy groaned. “It’s gonna be a long day. Maybe we’ll watch a movie in French and I can sleep.” Link gave his arm a squeeze and led the way out the door. 

Before the potential naptime of French class, they both had Biology with Ms. Fischer. It was on the other side of the building so they were usually the last to arrive, and today was no different. The room was nearly full of students sitting two to a table in rows that faced the front of the class. As he made his way over to the table he usually shared with Rhett, Link noticed another boy sitting there, who stood up as the two teens approached.

The teenager who had been sitting in Link’s seat was tall and slim with a sharp jaw and high cheekbones. He was wearing normal clothes now — dark jeans and a charcoal grey sweater — and his pale blond hair was cut stylishly short over ears that were now rounded on top. His ice-blue gaze, however, was unmistakable. He looked down at Link’s open-mouthed astonishment with a familiar expression of elegant amusement.

Link froze in his tracks, barely registering Rhett’s grunt of surprise as the boy avoided colliding with his back. He stood in stunned paralysis until Ms. Fischer spoke from the front of the room. “Link? I see you’ve met Theron. He’s an exchange student from Ireland. I paired him up with Rhett so you’ll be working with Julie from now on.”

The boy rolled the name around his tongue as if tasting the flavor of it. “Link… Hello, Link.” He leaned forward and his whispered breath tickled Link’s cheek. “It’s good to see you again.”

Link fought the urge to shiver as the boy drew back. “Um. Hello,” he stammered. His head felt full of fog. He turned and saw Julie smiling at him from the next table over, and stumbled to it on knees gone weak. He pulled out the chair and slowly sat down, moving on autopilot as the teacher called the class to order. His mind was a storm of memories that threatened to drown him, but one voice cut through it all.

“Hi, I’m Rhett. Theron, is it? That’s a really cool name!”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience in waiting for this update!

Link was lucky that his new table partner, Julie, was a good student, because she needed to pay attention for both of them. He could barely hear Ms. Fischer explaining the processes of the human digestive system; his ears were hyper-tuned to the neighboring table where Rhett and Theron sat. For the most part the two boys were quiet, but every few minutes one would say something Link couldn’t make out and the other would emit a stifled chuckle. He sensed an energy thrumming between them, the excitement of two people who know they have discovered a new friend, and it made his stomach twist into knots.  


He buried his nose in his textbook as his mind raced in fits and starts of memory. The truth of what had happened on Halloween was finally materializing in his head, centered around the mysterious boy who had shown him how to heal Rhett’s wounds. Link shivered to recall Theron’s cold hands on his face, eyes piercing him, sending him to another dimension where people’s auras were ribbons of color he could touch. He remembered what Theron had asked for in return — a “welcome” from Link — and wondered if that had something to do with the boy being here now. And how did he look so different? A haircut Link could understand, but how had his ears gone from pointed to round? 

_Is he like me?_ Link wondered. _Can he teach me other things, like how to look normal?_

Julie had to elbow Link twice before he lifted his head and looked around to see everyone, including the teacher, staring at him expectantly. “Read page one-oh-six,” Julie whispered. 

“Oh! Sorry, sorry…” Link fumbled through the pages until he found the assigned passage. His cheeks burned as his tongue stumbled over the description of digestive enzymes in the stomach. It was only a couple of paragraphs but it seemed to take forever to get to the end, at which point Ms. Fischer thanked him and asked Theron to read the next section.

Link watched as the boy read aloud about the gallbladder and spleen, his melodious accent adding a strange novelty to the mundane subjects. On the other side of him, Rhett was watching Theron as well. Link didn’t like the expression on his best friend’s face, with his brow slightly raised and lips quirked with curiosity. When Rhett’s gaze shifted to meet his and his eyebrow raised further in a question, Link bit his lip and looked away. 

They finished the class with some paired work, and Julie was very patient with his continued distraction. Every time Link heard Rhett’s deep laughter he would lose his train of thought in his effort to not look over at the two other boys, and she had to remind him of what he was saying. “Is something bothering you?” she finally asked.

“Nah, sorry.” Link scrubbed at his eyes. “Jus’ not feelin’ well I guess.” 

She patted his arm in sympathy and turned back to the diagram they were labeling. He joined her with fresh determination and managed to stay somewhat focused until the bell rang. 

He thanked God when Theron turned to the opposite direction outside the classroom door; the boy evidently did not have French class with them next. As the strange teenager disappeared around the corner, Link felt the tension drain from his spine. He was in the middle of a sigh of relief when Rhett piped up, “That new kid’s pretty cool.”

Link shot a look over to his best friend’s face and saw Rhett’s eyes were bright, almost glassy as he grinned down at Link. “I dunno…” Link hmphed. “Seems a little uptight to me.”

“Just ‘cause he’s not a hick like us don’t mean he’s uptight,” Rhett point out, his tone light. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Link agreed, looking down at the muted geometric carpet under their feet. He didn’t want to get into an argument. “He’s prolly alright.” 

“He knew everything on that diagram without havin’ to look it up,” Rhett enthused. 

“Maybe they got better schools wherever he’s from,” Link muttered, feeling a pout coming on.

“Sure seems like it!” Rhett set a quick pace to their next class, his earlier tiredness forgotten. Link trailed along a half-step behind. When they got to their seats in French, he slumped down and tossed his backpack to the floor. Fortunately for his rapidly declining mood, the teacher announced they’d be watching a French soap opera that day. He stared at the screen and let his mind go blank, knowing he’d pay for it later when it came time to write about the show for his homework. He didn’t much care.

He parted ways with Rhett after that; he had Calculus and Rhett had Physics. The math helped clear his head, providing a welcome distraction from the complexities of his own life. The respite was short-lived, however, when he arrived at their usual lunch table to see Theron and Rhett already there. The ivory-haired newcomer was sitting in Link’s usual seat to Rhett’s left. Link took the seat on the other side and set his tray down hard enough to make his jello bounce. 

“Hey Link!” Rhett grinned. “Theron’s got Physics with me and he let me drag ‘im along to eat with us.”

“Oh goodie,” Link muttered under his breath.

“Good to see you again, Link,” Theron said, and though Link wasn’t looking at his face, he knew the boy was smiling that too-clever smile again.

“Hi,” Link said curtly. He set to work eating his lunch and acting as naturally as he could. The rest of the teenagers at the table spent the lunch period explaining everything they thought Theron needed to know about Harnett Central High School and the surrounding area. They told him about the best pizza joint and the arcade with the pinball tournaments and explained, with a hint of bashfulness, that the best source of fun was usually to be had in cow pastures and abandoned shacks in the woods.

Rhett began telling Theron about their camping club, a group of boys who spent nights on the bank of the Cape Fear River, and Link listened with his stomach roiling. _The river is supposed to be our thing. He’s not allowed to come in and poison it…_ He pushed his half-eaten sandwich away and interrupted. 

“Rhett, don’t you think…” He trailed off as his friend fell silent and looked at him. He leaned in and continued more quietly, “Don’t you think the camping club is more for, like, our close friends? We don’t even know if he can swim.”

“I assure you, I’m an excellent swimmer.” Theron smiled at him from the other side of Rhett, his expression open and friendly. Link stared at him, trying to figure out why he wasn’t charmed like everyone else seemed to be… and then his mouth went dry with realization: the boy had no aura.

By now, at the age of sixteen, Link had honed his perceptions enough that he could see everyone’s aura when he tried. He’d grown accustomed to the colors that swirled around the people in his life, so much so that he barely thought about it most of the time. But now that he was making a specific effort to _look_ at Theron, he saw nothing. _Everyone_ had an aura. This was somehow more disconcerting than the boy’s pupils, which always remained pinpoints within orbs of icy blue.

Link’s heart pounded hard in his chest as he looked away. He suddenly felt rather out of his depth. “Oh… that’s fine then.”

“See?” Rhett clasped Link’s shoulder. “He’ll be great on the river.”

Link ducked his head in a defeated nod. He felt momentary comfort from Rhett’s touch, but the hand fell as Rhett turned back to tell Theron more about their previous camping adventures. Link stared down at his sandwich, willing himself to pick it back up and eat and show Theron he wasn’t afraid of him, but he couldn’t do it. He glanced at the clock on the wall, saw the lunch period was not even half over, and stood up. “I gotta go get something from the library,” he muttered. “See y’all later.”

Rhett glanced up at him with a furrowed brow, then gestured to Link’ tray. “You not gonna finish that?”

“Nah.”

“Can I have it?”

Link rolled his eyes but smiled, glad of the reminder that Rhett was still Rhett. “Knock yourself out.” He left his tray and picked up his backpack, hiking it up onto one shoulder as he headed toward the door. Once there, he glanced back over his shoulder to see Rhett still sitting sideways in his seat, talking animatedly to Theron while the other boys listened in. He rubbed at the scar on his palm, which had begun to itch.

\--

Much to Link’s dismay, Theron managed to fully assimilate into their social circle in a matter of weeks. All the teens seemed to share Rhett’s fascination with the new student, even though Theron never talked much about himself. There was something about the way he listened to people that flattered and pleased them, and Link watched in growing discomfort as everyone preened under his charismatic gaze. 

_Why isn’t anyone talking about how weird he is?_ Link asked himself for the hundredth time. Anyone else would’ve been made fun of for their formal way of speaking and general lack of Southern-ness. _Why does he get to come out of nowhere and be everyone’s new best friend?_ He never asked the questions out loud, though, because he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was responsible for Theron’s presence in the first place. 

Theron often turned his gaze on Link, too, but there was something different in his eyes then. Link never felt charmed by the other boy; instead, he felt like he was being sized up. Whatever Theron saw in Link, it always brought a derisive smirk to his lips that made Link feel small and defensive and angry.

He tried to explain it to Rhett one Friday in the parking lot after school, when Rhett suggested the two of them invite Theron to hang out over the weekend. It promised to be an unseasonably warm Saturday and Rhett wanted to go to the river. “He doesn’t like me, you know,” Link pointed out. “He likes y’all just fine but not me… dunno why.”

Rhett raised a brow. “Maybe ‘cause you’re kinda weird around him?”

Link frowned. “Am not.”

“You don’t talk much. And when you do, it’s, I dunno, rude. He prolly thinks _you_ don’t like _him_.” 

“Well I don’t,” Link muttered. “He’s not nice to me.” He winced at the petulant quaver in his voice.

“Y’all just got off on the wrong foot.” Rhett sounded exasperated. 

Link chewed his lip. “I got a strange feelin’ about him is all. Like there’s somethin’ bad. He just showed up one day outta the blue and now he’s, like, everyone’s new best friend.”

Rhett’s arm snaked around his waist and pulled him into a rough side hug. “You’re my best friend, buddy. Don’t worry ‘bout that.”

Link grinned up into Rhett’s sparkling eyes, the weight of the hug providing instant reassurance. “Okay.”

Rhett released him and stepped back. “So why don’t the three of us hang out tomorrow, and you guys’ll get to know each other better so we can all get along.”

It sounded final, and Link didn’t want to be obstinate. How bad could an afternoon at the river be? “All right,” he said.

\--

The answer was that an afternoon at the river could be pretty darn bad. 

Link showed up at Rhett’s house on his bike, as usual, expecting that they’d all ride down to the river together. Instead, he arrived to see an unfamiliar vehicle parked in the driveway — a gleaming silver sports car. Theron lounged against the hood and Rhett stood in front of him, gesturing animatedly as they chatted. The newcomer was dressed in fitted dark slacks and a slate blue sweater that hugged his slim torso and flattered his pale skin. Rhett wore a burgundy hoodie that he usually saved for school, and the pair of jeans Link knew were his favorites. Link suddenly felt shabby in his cargo pants and olive green sweatshirt. They didn’t usually dress up for the river.

Link set his bike down in the grass next to the driveway and walked over. 

“Hey Link! Check it out, Theron’s got his own wheels.”

Link suppressed the twinge of envy and reminded himself to start off on the right foot. “Cool, that’ll be warmer than the bikes.” He looked the car over as chafed his hands together, getting the feeling back into them after their grip on the handlebars. The car was a make he didn’t recognize and it looked brand new. “This yours?” he asked.

Theron gave the hood a rap with his knuckles. “My father’s.” He moved around to the driver’s side and opened the door. “Shall we?”

Rhett opened the other door and pulled the lever to tilt the seat forward, then gestured to Link. “Sorry you gotta cram into the back. You know I got no hope of fittin’.”

“Yeah, yeah, s’fine.” Link clambered awkwardly into the diminutive back seat, folding his legs up to the side and wedging his feet into the tiny footwell. He’d never smelled a new car before, but he figured that was probably the strange medicinal scent currently hitting his nostrils. It instantly gave him a headache.

Rhett pushed the seat back and sat down, then closed the door. Theron started the engine and the car rumbled to life. As they set off down the road, Link had to lean forward in order to hear the conversation in the front seat over the noise. It turned out to be a pointless exercise, as the two boys seemed to have no interest in including him. As Rhett continued the story he’d been telling Theron when Link arrived, something about the basketball exercises his dad made him do, Link slumped back against the sleek black upholstery and stared out the window with his jaw clamped tight. 

It wasn’t much better when they got to the riverbank. The hike through the woods from the road was a satisfying bit of exercise, but when they arrived at their usual spot on the shore, another bit of awkwardness arose. There were two large rocks that Rhett and Link traditionally sat on; they’d worked out long ago that the larger one was for the person who was speaking and the person on the smaller one asked questions (and they switched seats regularly). Now, Rhett contemplated the rocks for a few seconds before shading his eyes to scan in both directions. 

“We not gonna sit here?” Link asked.

“Nah, we won’t all fit.”

Link would’ve been content to put Theron on an even _smaller_ rock — if not chuck him into the river entirely — but he liked the idea of keeping “their spot” unsullied by the interloper’s presence. “How ‘bout there?” he pointed at a spot twenty yards downstream where a lot of rocks were jumbled up between the water and treeline.

Rhett grunted his approval and the three boys picked their way over to them and sat down. Once settled, the dynamics continued much the same as they had in the car. Rhett filled the air with stories for Theron, more about life in Buies Creek, and the other boy reacted with charming enthusiasm. Rhett reveled in the attention and excitement of having a new audience for his tales, rather than someone who’d heard them a hundred times. He didn’t seem to notice how little Theron said about his own life.

After about an hour of this, Link elbowed his way into the conversation to ask, “So where exactly in Ireland are you from?”

The boy smiled at him, showing off his sharp white teeth. “An island called Arranmore off County Donegal. Do you know it?”

Link’s knowledge of Irish geography was essentially nonexistent. He knew Dublin was in there somewhere, that was about it. He made a mental note to pull out the world atlas when he got home. “Never heard of it,” he admitted. Rhett shook his head in agreement.

Theron’s eyes were distant as he looked out over the water. “‘Tis a beautiful place, all steep cliffs and dark caves. And very, very green.”

“You lived on an island? That’s so cool!” Rhett enthused.

“Why’d you come here, then?” Link demanded. 

Theron’s eyes focused back on his and Link felt himself flush. “I desired a change of scenery,” he replied.

“But why Buies Creek, specifically?”

Rhett chuckled. “Yeah, there’s not much in the way of good scenery around here.”

Theron turned to Rhett with a raised brow and paused, giving the boy a deliberate once-over. “You’d be surprised.”

Rhett’s eyes widened slightly and he stammered, “Yeah, uh, I guess this isn’t so bad. I mean, the river’s pretty cool and all, we’re just used to it so we take it for granted and… and stuff.” His cheeks were pink when he looked back out over the gentle current. 

Link felt a jolt of horror. _Was that—did they just—?_ His eyes darted between the two boys, watching Rhett’s green and gold halo shimmer in the sunlight, reflecting his heightened emotion. Theron’s expression retained its mild amusement as Link tried in vain once more to see any aura around him. The silence quickly became awkward and Link wracked his brain to continue his interrogation. “So your parents… they come here for work or somethin’?”

“They remain in Arranmore. They cannot travel as I can, alas.”

Rhett let out a noise of surprise. “Who’re you livin’ with, then?”

“No one. I traveled here alone.”

“Whoa.” Rhett looked quite impressed. “You here on your own? You got a whole house to yourself?”

“Indeed I do.”

“Awesome!” Rhett crowed. “Party at Theron’s place!”

“It is not suited for large gatherings,” Theron protested.

As Rhett launched into a story of the party they had last year at their friend Mike’s house, where Mike had nearly blown his thumb off with a bottle rocket, Link’s mind was in turmoil. None of it was adding up. How did a teenager afford to move across the world and live by himself? Even more, what was the real reason he picked Buies Creek? He thought about asking why Theron had been there in the cornfield on Halloween night, and why it had taken him months to start attending school if he’d already moved to town. But he hesitated to admit to Rhett that he’d met Theron before. He worried that, if Rhett knew Theron had paid a pivotal role in saving his life, his attraction to the boy might grow. 

So instead Link clammed up again, letting Rhett ramble on about safer topics while Theron smiled and nodded. Eventually Link stood up and scrounged for rocks to skip on the river, only half listening to the conversation that seemed determined to exclude him anyway. Every now and then he felt a wisp of desire tickle the back of his brain, and he didn’t have to turn around to know Rhett was looking at Theron in that moment. It felt different from the ardor he sometimes felt Rhett direct toward him; it had a sharpness to it that abraded his nerves. As the afternoon wore on, jealousy made him sullen and snappish, which only made the other boys exclude him more.

Finally he’d had enough. He heaved his last rock as far out into the water as he could, not bothering to try to skip it, and watched it impact with a satisfying splash. “I’m hungry,” he announced. “I’m ready to go home.”

Rhett looked like he was about to protest, but Theron got to his feet. “I am as well.”

Rhett glanced between the two of them, then shrugged and stood up too. “Okay, let’s go.” 

They made their way back to Theron’s car and crammed into it. The “new car” smell seemed stronger and his headache returned with a vengeance. By the time they pulled into Rhett’s driveway, he was desperate for fresh air. He and Rhett stood on the grass and watched Theron drive away, then turned to each other. 

Rhett didn’t bother with a preamble. “I thought you were gonna give him a chance, dude.”

Link took a step back. “What? I _was_ giving him a chance!”

“You barely said a word all day.”

“How could I, when you never stopped to take a breath tellin’ him your entire life story?”

Rhett turned away and scuffed his shoe on the asphalt. The winter sun was going down and his shadow stretched over the muddy grass of the McLaughlin’s lawn. “You coulda’ jumped in anytime.”

“I tried to ask him about himself, remember? And he barely said anything. Doncha think it’s weird he’s livin’ all alone?”

“It’s not weird, man, it’s cool.”

Link’s hands curled into frustrated fists. “’Sides, he just wanted to talk to you. I might as well not’ve been there at all.”

Rhett’s shoulders jerked in an irritated shrug. “Maybe that’d be better.”

Link felt a wave of coldness wash over him. “What?”

The other boy was looking down to where his toes scraped at the ground. “If you guys don’t get along, maybe we shouldn’t try hangin’ out again.”

There was a sudden lump in Link’s throat as the conversation took on a dangerous feel. “You mean… you and I will spend time together like before, and not invite him?”

“Yeah.”

“But you’ll… you’ll still see him other times?”

Rhett lifted his head and looked at him challengingly. “Yeah, Link, he’s my friend too. I wanna get to know him but apparently you don’t.”

Link liked the idea of never seeing Theron again outside of school, but he hated the prospect of Rhett spending time with the boy unchaperoned. He felt like his back was against the wall, though. Fighting with Theron in front of Rhett was only going to make him look bad. He wished he could explain the unease he felt about the way the strange boy looked at people sometimes, as if he were a predator and everyone else were prey. 

Link chewed on his lip. “Just… be careful, okay? I’m not sayin’ don’t see him, but we don’t know the guy at all. He could be anybody.” 

Rhett scoffed. “He’s just a teenage dumbass like the rest of us. You especially.” He gave Link’s shoulder a playful jostle. Link grabbed his hand on its retreat and tugged it back, pulling Rhett off balance and his thigh into a sharp check from Link’s bony hip. Both of them let out breathless laughs as they commenced wrestling at three-quarters strength, careful not to fall to the cold ground. The roughhousing dispelled the tension between them in the blink of an eye. After a brief, good-natured skirmish they ended up chest to chest with Rhett holding Link’s wrists pinned together behind his back. Rhett’s body was warm and alive as it jostled up against his, and they beamed at each other in the ruddy glow of the sunset. 

After struggling a bit for show, Link relaxed his arms and rested his cheek against Rhett’s chest. “You win, Mister Monkey Arms,” he huffed.

Rhett kept ahold of him, but his grip softened. “Only ‘cause we’re still standin’. You always win on the ground,” he pointed out generously.

“That’s right.” Link thought he should move away now that the game was over, but he didn’t want to. Rhett smelled like the wind along the verdant riverbank and the heat of his body was welcome in the growing chill. He felt Rhett’s chin rest on the top of his head and he let out a soft sigh and closed his eyes. When Rhett released his wrists, Link put his arms loosely around the other boy’s waist. After a few seconds, Rhett’s arms encircled his shoulders.

There was silence for a minute or two, as each of them wondered how the other felt about the hug, but both drew reassurance from the fact that neither was pulling away. Even with his eyes closed, Link could see the golden hue of Rhett’s aura rising and falling with his breath. The nagging worries about Theron were drowned out by the thrilling combination of comfort and electricity he found within Rhett’s embrace.  

One of Rhett’s hands trailed down his hair, stroking through the ebony waves with tentative sweetness. Overhead, the streetlight came on as the sunlight finally faded, and Rhett’s voice rumbled against Link’s cheek. “Wanna stay for dinner? It’s chicken casserole.”

Link leaned back and looked up into Rhett’s eyes. “Of course,” he replied with a grin. “I’m starving.” He gave the boy’s waist a squeeze before letting go, and together they turned and walked into the house.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains excessive alcohol consumption and supernaturally-caused dubious consent.

Rhett commenced his plan of dividing his time between Theron and Link and Link’s paranoia grew accordingly. Whenever he wasn’t with Rhett, he obsessed over whether Theron was. When he saw the pair talking in the cafeteria or sitting in Theron’s fancy sports car in the parking lot, Link’s stomach twisted with worry and jealousy. He began trailing after Rhett like a loyal puppy, jumping at every opportunity to spend time with him, until the taller boy had to put his foot down. “Link, I love ya man, but we talked about this. I’m gonna hang out with Theron sometimes and you clingin’ to my butt like a barnacle ain’t gonna stop me.”  


“I know, I know. I’m sorry.” 

After that gentle admonition, Link did his best to give Rhett some space, instead spending more time with his other friends, his mother, and even his schoolwork. He told himself it was necessary to keep the peace. Whenever he was doing so, though, there was always at least a tiny part of his mind wondering what Rhett was up to (and if he was getting up to it with Theron). 

If Link had been a normal boy, his concern about Rhett’s feelings for Theron might have prompted him to bring up the issue with Rhett, and they could have had a conversation about it out in the open. However, Link didn’t have to ask. Every day he cursed his special power that allowed him to sense just how much attraction Rhett was feeling toward the other boy. His sensitivity to Rhett’s emotions had no mercy where Theron was concerned. Instead, he was acutely aware of Rhett’s fascination. Link still felt that warm caress in his mind when he and Rhett were alone together, and knew that indicated when Rhett was feeling particularly attracted to him, but those moments came more rarely now.

One Friday in late February, Link stopped Rhett on their way out to the parking lot after the closing bell to ask if he wanted to get together that weekend. “My momma’s gon’ be out at her cousin’s place Saturday night,” he pointed out with a waggle of his brow. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d have the house to themselves, and it wasn’t like they got into _trouble_ without a chaperone or anything, but it was still exciting to be able to stay up late and watch the television or get into giggle fits without worrying about waking someone up.

Rhett grinned for a moment, but then his face fell. “Aw, I already told Theron I’d go over his place tomorrow. Sorry, dude.”

Link smiled quickly, forcing a light veneer over his disappointment and quashing the urge to wheedle Rhett into rescheduling. “Don’t worry about it. Um, maybe I’ll see you Sunday then. If I don’t stay up all night watching an X-Files marathon or something.”

“Yeah, you’ll never fall asleep if you watch that show by yourself.” Rhett gave his shoulder a playful jostle. “You get scared if I’m not there to check under your bed.” 

Link felt his face heat up. “Do not,” he protested, but he was grinning. 

Rhett squeezed his shoulder before letting go. “Whatever you say, bo. Well, gimme a call on Sunday afternoon and we’ll hang out then, all right?”

“Will do.” 

They made idle conversation on the stroll to their cars (parked side by side as usual), then parted ways after a brief hug. When he got home, Link thought about calling around to see if his other friends wanted to get together, but there was no one he could think of that he wanted to see. It looked like it was going to be a quiet weekend at home catching up on homework and vegetating in front of the television, trying not to wonder what Rhett was doing.

\--

The next morning, Link woke to the sound of his mother’s gentle knocking on his bedroom door. He rubbed his eyes and looked blearily at the alarm clock on his bedside table — 10:37 — as he let out a questioning grunt in response. 

“I’m leaving, honey,” she called. “I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon.”

“Okay, momma,” he called back. “Have fun.”

“Don’t get into any trouble while I’m gone.”

Link rolled his eyes. Without Rhett, the chances of him finding any trouble were pretty much nil. “I’ll be good,” he promised.

“I love you, baby.”

“Love you too.”

He lay in bed and listened to his mother’s footsteps retreat down the hallway, the scrape of her keys as she retrieved them from the kitchen counter, and then the soft thump of the front door closing behind her. He’d already flipped the thick blankets back over his head and was back to snoring by the time her car pulled out of the driveway. 

He woke again a few hours later, wrapped in the remnants of dream-warmth that was woven through with green and gold. He had been at the river with Rhett, racing him along its banks, at times taking to the sky in flight or plunging under the water with the magic of dreams. They frequently joined together with clasped hands as they wrestled and laughed. His first thought upon his return to consciousness was that he couldn’t wait to see Rhett and tell him about the dream. His stomach sank when he remembered that would be quite a while from now.

Having nothing else to do, Link was tempted to go back to sleep and chase those dreams as long as he could. Unfortunately, his mouth was dry and his stomach gurgled, and most pressingly, his bladder was full. He shoved the blankets off of himself and stretched, then clambered to his feet with a groan. He pulled a pair of plaid flannel pants over his white briefs and shuffled to the bathroom to take care of business. 

Once said business was complete, he stood before the full-length mirror on the back of the door and looked himself over with a critical eye in the thin winter light that streamed in from the window. At seventeen, there was still no hint of hair on his face or body, despite the thick ebony curls that fell from his head to just above the sharp protuberances of his collarbones. The lines of the bones stood out aggressively under the smooth alabaster skin, matched by the pointiness of his Adam’s apple. His waist tapered in a long line down to the ridges of his hipbones, which were clearly visible through the thin flannel fabric of his pants. 

Considering the parts of his skeleton that seemed so close to the surface, he wasn’t exactly skinny. There was clearly some muscle in his shoulders and chest, even in his arms. No, skinny wasn’t the problem… He frowned and turned to the side, pinching the smooth skin below his belly button and running his palms over his chest. Why didn’t his skin look more like Rhett’s, with his freckles and tan lines and soft scattered hair? The pale uniformity of Link’s complexion made everything else stand out more by contrast: his dark eyebrows and eyelashes, his deep blue eyes, the rosy hues of his lips and nipples. It made him feel too bright, almost like a peacock. 

He met his too-blue eyes in the mirror and bared his teeth, running his tongue over his pearly white canines. He arched his brow, trying out a suave, come-hither look, then shook his head and let out his breath in a huff. _Ridiculous_. He grabbed his green fleece bathrobe from the hook on the wall and pulled it over his shoulders, not bothering to belt it, and went downstairs to get a bowl of cereal from the kitchen. He hummed tunelessly to fill the silence of the empty house until he got to the couch and turned on the television. He flipped through the channels until he found some cartoons to accompany his breakfast, then leaned back and settled in for a long, lonely day.

\--

He managed to keep his mind blank for quite a few hours, zoning out in front of the television or bent over his homework. There was only the occasional lapse where he found himself wondering what Rhett was up to. At first he recoiled from those thoughts like a child touching a hot stove, but eventually his curiosity won out and he let his mind wander over to what his best friend might be doing with Theron.

 _Are they watching TV? Playing video games? Wrestling?_ Link chewed the inside of his cheek. _What if they went back to the river?_ The day was cold and overcast and the current would be swift, but they could sit on the rocks and talk if they wanted to. Maybe Rhett would let Theron sit on the rocks he usually shared with Link. _Our rocks._

“I hope he falls in,” Link muttered to himself. But knowing Theron, he’d swim a lap up and down the river and come back with a rescued puppy under each arm or something. _Doesn’t the guy have any flaws?_

Link was sitting at the kitchen table eating dinner of baked macaroni and cheese fresh from the microwave as the sun was going down outside the window. The clouds had a reddish tint to them and the bare tree branches waved in the wind, catching his eye and making him feel on edge. He’d never bothered to get dressed that day; there’d been no need to abandon his comfy robe and pajama pants. 

He was halfway to his mouth with a forkful of noodles when his right hand twitched and he dropped the utensil into the bowl with a clatter. _Clumsy as always,_ he thought, and then he registered a strange sensation in his palm. His other hand came up instinctively to rub at the tingling, itching feeling and looked down to see the blood oath scar, normally a pale line, was now a ruddy pink. He was waving his hand through the air in an attempt to shake away the pins-and-needles when the light in the room abruptly dimmed, as if the sun had finished setting all at once. 

Link stood and flicked the light switch on, then examined his hand in the light for clues. The tiny cut Rhett had made during their blood oath had long since healed; there was no reason it should hurt now. And it wasn’t pain, exactly. He had the bizarre idea that the scar was trying to _warn_ him. 

As he stared at it, dumbfounded, he became aware of another bodily sensation vying for his attention: an altogether more intimate one, tinged with green and gold. It was like the nights when he was visited by Rhett’s desires, only different. It wasn’t Rhett enjoying himself solo that Link was perceiving, it was Rhett beginning to enjoy himself with another person. 

Link’s stomach dropped. “Oh gosh, no,” he murmured, squirming in his seat in a vain attempt to calm the heat rising in his groin. Eavesdropping on Rhett’s fantasies about Link was one thing, but this was not good at all. He didn’t want to know what was happening between Rhett and Theron right now. He certainly didn’t want a front row seat on the action, so to speak. It was bad enough knowing Rhett wanted Theron instead of him. It was a hundred times worse to _feel_ what Rhett was doing about it.

Link abandoned his dinner, his appetite turned to dust, and retreated back to the couch. He turned on the television and flipped through the channels until he found an action movie, dialing the volume up loud. A distraction was the only thing he could think of to get through this. For a while it seemed to work, but it wasn’t long before he started to feel whispers of arousal once again. One moment he felt a caress along his cheek, the next there was cold pressure on his lips. He scrubbed at his face with his hand. A strange taste crept into his mouth: woodsmoke and burnt marshmallows, as if he had licked a campfire. 

He fought to ignore all of this until the distinct scrape of teeth underneath his ear made him leap to his feet with a yelp. He felt his body responding again, goosebumps spreading across his chest and arousal making his skin flush. “Stop it, stop it,” he muttered as he paced back and forth on the well-worn carpet. “I don’t wanna know, I don’t wanna, get outta my head…” He curled his hand into a fist, fingernails digging into the tingling scar. The pain momentarily brought him some respite and he increased the pressure until there were tears in his eyes. His chest heaved as he stared blindly around the room. _I can’t stand this. It’s too much._

Impulsively, he snatched the phone from its cradle by the couch and dialed Rhett’s number. It was only when he heard it ring on the other end that he blushed with the realization that he might be interrupting something, but he shook his head and waited. It would be worth the awkwardness if he could put a stop to these intrusive feelings. 

Rhett’s mother answered. “Hello?”

“Hi, Mrs. McLaughlin,” Link coughed to clear the lump in his throat. “Is Rhett, um, home?”

“Well hi there, Link! Rhett’s out with a friend tonight. Theron, that new Irish boy. I figured y’all’d be hanging out together, no?”

“No, I…” Link stammered. “I stayed home. I’m not feelin’ well. I jus’… wanted to say hi to them.”

“Well I hope you feel better soon, honey. Bein’ sick on the weekend’s no fun at all. Would you like me to tell Rhett you called?”

“No! No thanks, uh. I’ll just call tomorrow.”

He made his hasty goodbyes and hung up the phone, then stared at it in growing despair. If Rhett was at Theron’s house, Link had no way of contacting him — he didn’t even know where the house was — and worse, that meant the boys had all the privacy they needed in order to do… whatever. 

The thought coincided with the faint sensation of lips running along his neck and a corresponding rush of heat to his belly. Link let out a groan and hugged his robe closed as he fled to his bedroom, suddenly feeling exposed despite being the only one home.

He closed the door and stared at himself in the mirror over his bureau, horrified by his flushed cheeks and dilated eyes. “Get a grip, man,” he ordered. “It’s all in your head. You don’t even know if it’s real.”

Given the choice between being some sort of psychic peeping Tom and having insane sexual hallucinations, he wasn’t sure which would be worse. It was all fun and games when it had been Rhett thinking about him… everything he thought he “overheard” from Rhett were things Link was wholeheartedly in favor of experiencing with his best friend. Now, though, these sensations had the foreign and repulsive taint of Theron woven throughout them. 

_Is he thinking about me while he’s with him? Is that why I’m getting drawn into it?_ Link’s mind raced through possibilities, theories, and justifications until it was interrupted by the distinct feeling of bare skin against his body. Someone’s bare torso pressed against him, and it was not someone Rhett’s height. It was someone thinner, shorter…

Link was already reeling from the slap across his cheek before he’d consciously registered delivering it to himself. The heavy sting brought him a moment of clarity and he sucked in a deep breath and let it out before slapping himself again, harder. The crack of it reverberated around the room and he saw stars. 

“Is that what it takes?” he demanded of his reflection. “I have to hurt you, is that it?” His eyes shimmered with unshed tears and his right cheek had a red splotch across the bone. He kept his hand up, brandishing it at himself, waiting. For a long moment he thought he’d succeeded in vanquishing the intimate sensations. His hand began to fall and he let out the breath he was holding, only to gasp it back in when ghostly hands clasped him around his waist and pulled him against the same invisible body.

“No!” he shouted, hugging himself and clawing at his forearms. He bit his lip and let out a sob as tears spilled through his eyelashes. _Nothing’s working._ He raced out of the room and back down the hall with the wild idea that he could outrun the feelings, even though they were coming from inside him. 

He skidded to a stop in the kitchen, leaned over the counter, pressing his palms into his closed eyes as his chest heaved. “Please, just… just leave me alone,” he whimpered, fear and despair battling with the insistent arousal that pawed at the edges of his brain. Each heartbeat carried a pulse of emerald green lust through his veins, stoking the flame in his belly like a bellows. Things at Theron’s house were heating up and Link was helplessly burning along with them. 

He began to ransack the room in a desperate flurry, looking for anything that might provide an antidote. Forks and spoons crashed to the floor when he jerked a drawer open too hard. Finally, he opened the long-forgotten cabinet above the refrigerator and his eyes alit on a dusty bottle with a brown label that was almost full of a deep burgundy liquid. He pulled it out and looked closer, wiping away tears with the back of his hand to focus on the label: it was brandy.

The elegant-looking bottle had been opened but barely consumed; it seemed likely his mother had picked it up to use in a recipe and then stashed the remainder in the cabinet to be promptly forgotten. He was confident it wouldn’t be missed. He tugged at the cork until it let go with a satisfying _pop_ and gave the liquid a cautious sniff. It was sweet and fruity with a hint of mustiness that spoke of danger and the mystery of adulthood.

Link had tasted alcohol before; sometimes on his mother’s offering but usually it was cheap beer or Southern Comfort smuggled into a party. He’d never had it past the point of a queasy stomach and faint spinning of his head; that was unpleasant enough that he never wanted more. Now, though, he remembered the kids he’d seen at those parties who drank to excess and ended up passed out under a table or on the front lawn. Aside from the ones who vomited, they always seemed pretty peaceful to Link. More importantly, they seemed entirely oblivious to the world.

That’s what Link wanted right now, as disembodied hands ran over his skin and invisible lips teased against his own. He was determined to regain some control over his own thoughts, even if that control came from unconsciousness. He was angry: angry at Theron for taking away his best friend. Angry at Rhett for being with Theron instead of with him. And angry at the extrasensory perception that forced him to feel every breath of that betrayal inside his own body.

He lifted the bottle to his lips and took a large swig. The brandy wasn’t as sweet as it smelled and it burned a little on the way down his throat, but he didn’t hesitate before taking another pull. He began to feel the alcohol warming his chest and abdomen, replacing the heat of desire, making his body feel slow and numb instead of hot and electric. He took that as encouragement for another sizable swallow. 

He stumbled back to the couch, his feet already graceless, and slumped into it with the bottle in hand. After a few minutes of steady imbibing he recognized the familiar feeling of queasiness, but he soldiered on. _Serves you right_ , he told his body, reveling in the way it appeared to be shutting down. He glared down at his own crotch through blurry vision. _If you can’t… behave yourself… you don’t get to be awake._

He was three-quarters through the brandy when he realized his hand had lost significant coordination and he could no longer bring the bottle to his lips and drink with any degree of accuracy, so he carefully set it on the floor and lay down completely on the couch. He didn’t feel anything anymore, no lust or despair, just a grim sense of satisfaction. He would probably pass out soon, and that was fine with him. When he woke up Rhett would be done doing whatever he was doing and Link wouldn’t have to feel it anymore. 

He was drifting, drifting, sinking deeper and deeper as more of the alcohol entered his bloodstream. The last sensation he perceived was a throbbing pain in his palm that coincided with a flash of green and gold behind his eyelids. The colors tangled and knotted around themselves in a frenzy in his mind. They seemed to be reaching for Link, pulling against something that was drawing them away from him. He moaned at the agony in his hand as the colors exploded into fireworks, shimmering and dancing in flames that slowly faded to embers.

 _Rhett,_ he thought as the room spun around him. _You’re always so beautiful, no matter what you’re doing to me._

Then the colors were gone, and everything was black.


End file.
